It’s Saturday, January 24, 2026, and if you’re looking at the tech tickers this morning, Intel is a sea of red. The company just had its worst day on the market in 17 months, with shares cratering by 17% to land around 45.09.
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The thing is, Intel actually beat expectations for the last quarter of 2025. But in the stock market, nobody cares about yesterday. It’s all about the “lackluster” forecast for Q1 2026. Or nothing.
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Intel’s 17% Plunge: Field Notes
It’s an ongoing situation where the “turnaround” story led by CEO Lip-Bu Tan has hit a massive manufacturing wall. Here’s the ground reality from the earnings call:
The Yield Nightmare: Intel is struggling with “low manufacturing yields.” Basically, they’re making chips, but a huge chunk of them are coming out of the factory as expensive paperweights. Tan admitted that production isn’t up to his standards. Those too.
The Server Gap: Demand for high-margin server chips is “quite strong,” but Intel literally has no supply left. They burned through their inventory in Q4, and the new stuff won’t be ready until the end of March. Let’s be real—you can’t sell what you don’t have.
The US Government’s Stake: Here’s the kicker—taxpayers are technically Intel’s biggest cheerleaders right now. After an $8.9 billion investment last year, the US government holds about 274.6 million shares. Even after yesterday’s crash, that stake is worth roughly 20.4 billion on paper, but the “Trump Rally” that boosted Intel in 2025 is definitely losing steam. Or nothing.
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Intel vs. The Estimates (Q1 2026 Forecast)
| Metric | Intel’s Q1 Forecast | Wall Street Expectation | The Gap |
| Revenue | $11.7B – $12.7B | $12.6B | Missed Midpoint |
| Earnings (EPS) | $0.00 (Breakeven) | $0.08 | Big Miss |
| Gross Margin | 34.5% | 36.5% | Tightening |
And Here’s the Kicker…
While Intel is tripping over its own feet, its rivals are sprinting. TSMC (the giant from Taiwan) just announced plans to build four more plants in Arizona. They’re basically building a chip empire on Intel’s home turf.
The thing is, CFO Dave Zinsner said we won’t see a real boost in output from new machinery until 2027. That’s a long time to ask investors to keep the faith while Nvidia and AMD are eating their lunch in the AI space. Those too.
One side comment—Tan warned that higher memory prices (DRAM/NAND) are going to make laptops more expensive this year. So if you were planning on a cheap upgrade in 2026, you might want to reconsider. Or nothing.
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End…
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