Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) stock is up by around 8% in Wednesday trading, with shares climbing above $47. Two company-specific catalysts are driving the move: the launch of Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 enterprise chips and a round of CPU price increases. Together, they’ve handed the bulls the kind of tangible progress they’ve been waiting for.
The stock has now gained 29% year-to-date and is up 96% from its April 2025 lows near $22. That’s a dramatic recovery for a company that spent much of last year fighting to prove its turnaround was more than a talking point. Today’s move adds weight to that argument, though it doesn’t settle the debate.
For a deeper look at how Intel’s new CEO has reshaped the company over the past year, our analysis on the Intel’s CEO first-year verdict is worth reading alongside today’s news.
Core Ultra Series 3 Launch Means More Than the Product
Intel announced new enterprise-focused commercial PC chips today, its Core Ultra Series 3 lineup. These are processors built for business PCs, designed to handle AI workloads at the edge, and what matters most is how they were made. They’re built on Intel’s most advanced process technology, which is the same Intel 18A node the company has been betting its future on.
The launch could demonstrate Intel’s readiness to ship high volumes of products using its new chip technology; that’s the real headline. Intel has been promising for years that its foundry strategy would eventually produce competitive, manufacturable chips at scale. Shipping commercial products on Intel 18A is the first concrete proof that the factory works.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan declared on the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call: “The introduction of our first products on Intel 18A marks an important milestone, and we’re working aggressively to grow supply to meet strong customer demand.” Today’s launch is that milestone becoming a product on a purchase order.
CPU Price Increases Add a Margin Story
Alongside the chip launch, Intel is raising prices across its CPU lineup, driven by supply shortages and higher material costs. For Intel right now, the price increases signal that demand is outpacing supply, a position the company hasn’t been in for a while.
Intel’s fourth-quarter 2025 non-GAAP gross margin came in at 34.5%, and the company guided for the same figure in Q1 2026. Any pricing power that flows through in the back half of 2026 could lift those margins meaningfully. For a company posting a trailing net loss with diluted EPS of -$0.06, improving margins are the path back to profitability.
Manufacturing Milestones and Real-Estate Moves
Intel has already accepted ASML‘s (NASDAQ:ASML | ASML Price Prediction) most advanced EXE:5200 High-NA EUV lithography tool for high-volume manufacturing. This could be viewed as a technical milestone that confirms Intel’s foundry infrastructure is being built out in earnest.
On the balance-sheet side, Intel has received multiple institutional offers for a sales-leaseback of its 1.68 million square foot Folsom campus. Selling the building and leasing it back lets Intel convert real estate into cash while keeping operations running. Given that Intel ended Q4 with $14.27 billion in cash, management is clearly focused on preserving financial flexibility through the investment cycle.
The Bear Case Hasn’t Gone Away
The honest picture includes real headwinds. Analysts carry an average “Reduce” rating on INTC stock with a consensus price target of $45.74, which sits below where shares are trading right now.
Notably, the Intel Foundry segment posted a $2.51 billion operating loss in 2025’s fourth quarter, and the company guided for zero non-GAAP EPS in Q1 2026. Those numbers reflect how much ground Intel still has to recover.
Insider activity tells a mixed story, too. One executive vice president (EVP) sold 20,000 shares while another EVP bought 5,882 shares in recent activity. Competition from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) and other chipmakers remains intense, and Intel’s 18A process node has faced delays getting to this point.
Intel’s turnaround is real enough to produce a chip launch and generate pricing power, but it isn’t finished. The bull case rests on whether the foundry strategy produces competitive yields at scale and whether AI-driven CPU demand keeps growing.
Meanwhile, the bear case centers on whether the foundry losses are structural and whether Taiwan Semiconductor’s manufacturing lead is too wide to close. Thus, today’s move in Intel stock, while impressive, is a data point in the bull case but not the closing argument.
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