Intel set for biggest slide in 24 years as turnaround struggle deepens
Intel was set to erase nearly $25 billion in stock market value on Friday in potentially its worst selloff since 2000 after it suspended dividend and slashed workforce to fund a costly turnaround for its chip-making business.
The company's stock fell nearly 21% in premarket trading after Intel late on Thursday forecast quarterly revenue below estimates and announced 15% job cuts, raising worries about its ability to catch up with Taiwan's TSMC and other chipmakers.
"Intel's issues are now approaching the existential in our view," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said.
He said there would be "going concern" talks in other circumstances, but Intel could add $40 billion in cash to its balance sheet by the end of 2025 through the moves, as well as subsidies and partner contributions.
"Intel will survive (in some form) to continue the fight," Rasgon said.
Shares of other chip firms also fell, with Arm , Micron Technology, GlobalFoundries and U.S.-listed shares of TSMC trading down between 2% and 5.1%.
Wall Street darling Nvidia was 4% lower after a report about an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
'FORGOTTEN HORSEMAN'
Santa Clara-based Intel was once the world's leading chipmaker, with the "Intel Inside" logo a valuable marketing feature on personal computers in the 1980s and 90s.
Part of the dotcom era's Four Horsemen - along with Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Dell - Intel's stock market value peaked at nearly $500 billion in 2000 before slumping that year and never fully recovering.