Why Intel's Stock Just Had Its Worst Day in Decades
Intel's shares fell about 28% on October 30, 2026, after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion. Analysts had expected around $17 billion. According to TechCrunch, the drop wiped $12 billion off the value of the U.S. government's Intel holdings.
Bloomberg described it as the worst stock rout in more than four decades. It pointed to a slump in the PC industry and problems getting parts to factories, known as supply-chain snags.
The sell-off followed Intel's third-quarter results, released October 29. The company reported revenue of $16.5 billion, up 21% from a year earlier. Its GAAP earnings per share, the standard accounting measure of profit per share, came to $0.60.
On an adjusted basis, which leaves out certain one-time items, earnings were 52 cents. Analysts had expected 40 cents, according to CNBC. Reuters reported that the shares dropped 23% in after-hours trading that evening.
The forecast drove the reaction. Intel warned that its gross profit margin, the share of each sales dollar left after the direct cost of making products, would fall to 37% from 43%. It said it expected no positive cash flow because of heavy spending on new factories. Reuters reported that Intel expects to burn cash in 2026, meaning it will spend more than it takes in, as the PC market weakens.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan said customers had begun signaling a PC slowdown tied to memory prices and availability.
The quarter was not uniformly weak. Intel's data center business, which runs the computers behind websites and cloud services, grew 78% year over year, according to TechCrunch. One of the company's new chip factories, known as fabs, in Arizona is operational. The next one is not expected to come online until 2028.
The stake at the center of the headlines has its own history. The U.S. government bought its position more than a year before the October sell-off, under the Trump administration. Yahoo Finance reported that the government holds 9.9% of Intel and bought at $20.47 per share in August 2025. The same report said the October 30 decline was on pace for Intel's worst single-day performance since 1974.
Nvidia also took a large Intel stake in 2025. Despite the sell-off, Intel's shares were still up more than 70% for the year as of October 30.
The broader context here is a tug-of-war that industry watchers will recognize. Intel's PC business is softening just as its data center business speeds up. At the same time, the company is spending heavily on new factories while generating no positive free cash flow, the cash left after running and investing in the business. Those trends pull in different directions, and the margin guidance now points lower.
In my view, the key question for the next several quarters is whether data center growth can make up for the PC decline quickly enough to restore margins and cash generation. The October guidance does not answer that on its own.
For shareholders, the picture is also mixed. A government stake bought at a fixed price per share now sits well below that level in market terms, and Nvidia's position has been exposed to the same repricing.
In my view, for a chipmaker in the middle of a long, expensive buildout, the share price does more than keep score. It affects what the company pays to raise money and how much room it has to keep investing through a downturn.
The next steps are still largely a matter of execution. The Arizona fab gives Intel a working example of its manufacturing plans, and the data center figures show demand beyond PCs. The timing is the open question. The margin drop and cash burn Intel has forecast will arrive before the next factory opens, and the PC market will set how much room Intel has in the meantime.
