Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) shares climbed 4.16% to $93.59 in pre-market trading Monday after JPMorgan upgraded the chipmaker from Underweight to Neutral, ending a negative rating maintained since November 2022.
JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur issued the upgrade in a research note Sunday evening, saying Intel’s approximately 36% decline from its June peak had reduced the downside implied by the firm’s unchanged $85 price target. Sur also cited improving execution under CEO Lip-Bu Tan. The target remained approximately 9.2% below the latest pre-market share price.
Sur said Intel’s full turnaround would take years but acknowledged that management had made a solid start and that his confidence in its ability to execute was increasing.
The pre-market advance put Intel on track to snap a three-session losing streak. Shares declined approximately 12.6% during that period, closing Friday at $89.85. Despite the decline, the stock remained up roughly 143% year-to-date through Friday’s close.
JPMorgan Highlights Manufacturing Progress and Growing CPU Demand
JPMorgan’s improved assessment covered both the processors Intel sells and the factories that produce them. The bank said Intel had strengthened execution and competitiveness in PC and data-center chips since Tan became CEO.
In manufacturing, Sur highlighted progress in turning advanced chip designs into finished products. The firm reported improvements in production yields and manufacturability, along with better alignment between chip-design requirements and Intel’s fabrication processes. It also cited advances in packaging technology that combines multiple chips into a single package.
Sur also highlighted rising demand for central processing units (CPUs) used in agentic artificial intelligence systems, which can independently carry out multistep tasks. Combined with constrained advanced-chip supply, that demand could support upward revisions to earnings estimates, according to the analyst.
JPMorgan’s 2028 earnings-per-share estimates remain about 15% above Wall Street consensus forecasts.
Market Share Losses and Foundry Scale Remain Challenges
Despite its improved assessment of Intel’s execution, JPMorgan expects the company to continue losing processor market share for several more quarters, particularly in the server CPU market.
The firm estimated that Intel’s server x86 CPU revenue share had fallen from 77% to 53% since its November 2022 downgrade, while its PC CPU market share declined from 81% to 68%.
During that period, Intel shares also substantially underperformed those of major semiconductor competitors, including Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom, according to JPMorgan’s research.
The bank identified Intel’s external foundry business as another area requiring substantial growth. Intel reported $467 million in external Intel Foundry revenue in the first half of 2026, including third-party chipmaking and assembly-and-test services—equivalent to $934 million on a simple annualized basis.
JPMorgan compared Intel’s $934 million in annualized external-foundry revenue with approximately $150 billion in annualized first-half revenue at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, although the latter represents TSMC’s broader companywide revenue rather than an identical business segment.
Intel is scheduled to report its third-quarter 2026 results after the market closes on October 29, followed by an earnings conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.
Separately, Intel Tokenized bStocks (INTCB) traded at $93.48, up 4.54% over the preceding 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. The tokenized instrument trades separately from Intel’s Nasdaq-listed equity, and its 24-hour percentage change covers a different trading period.