Intel Stock Falls Nearly 29% in Its Worst Session Since 1974
Key Facts
Intel shares fell nearly 29% on Friday, October 30, 2026, marking their worst daily performance since 1974 after the company’s earnings outlook fell short of analysts’ estimates, according to the Associated Press. The losses again highlighted the challenges of the company’s transformation as its PC business faces pressure and it contends with costs tied to the artificial intelligence boom. Intel forecast quarterly revenue more than $1 billion below market estimates, according to a Reuters report. The company also said it did not expect to generate positive cash flow during the year. The decline came in Friday’s session after the stock closed at $92.07 on October 29, compared with $95.53 the previous day, according to EL7 data.
Some of the pressure is tied to weak demand for PCs, while the costs of the artificial intelligence boom are rising, according to Reuters. Intel’s PC chip business faces an additional challenge from rising memory prices, after accounting for about half of the company’s revenue in the third quarter of 2026. That dependence makes the business’s performance a major influence on company revenue, as PC demand falls and component costs rise. In its forecast, the company put next-quarter revenue more than $1 billion below market expectations. Intel also said it did not expect positive cash flow this year, adding to the pressure its outlook put on the stock.
The sell-off spread to U.S. semiconductor companies, with shares of AMD, Arm, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron falling between 4% and 12% during the October 30 session, according to Reuters. Shares of server makers Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Super Micro Computer fell between 6% and 11% in the same session. Among indexes, the S&P 500 fell 1.8%, the Nasdaq fell 2.9% and the Dow Jones fell 1.1%, according to the Associated Press. The agency said the S&P 500’s decline was its worst since June. A Reuters report estimated that Intel’s drop would erase more than $146 billion from its market value, while the value of the U.S. government’s stake in the company would fall by nearly $12 billion.
Intel shares had more than doubled during the year before Friday’s drop, following gains of more than 80% in 2025, according to Reuters. At the end of September 2026, the company had $21.84 billion in cash and cash equivalents, compared with $46.32 billion in long-term debt. Pressure also appeared in the credit market: five-year credit default swaps on Intel debt widened by 17.5 basis points to 124.75 points on October 30. That was the largest one-day increase in the swaps since October 2022, according to Markit data cited by Reuters. The stock’s decline coincided with these signs that the impact of the company’s outlook was extending from shares to its debt.