Chip stock Intel (INTC) has been on the comeback trail, and is looking for new sources of potential revenue anywhere they may be found. And it may have a winner of a prospect in the memory field. New reports suggest Intel may be looking to get back into memory after a long hiatus, and that was good enough for investors. They sent Intel shares surging over 4.5% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
Summer Sale - Claim 70% Off TipRanks
- Unlock powerful investing tools with TipRanks Premium to make smarter, more confident investment decisions
- Subscribe to TipRanks Smart Investor Newsletter, and discover new investing opportunities with data-backed stock picks
Recent remarks from Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s CEO, have some wondering if Intel may be looking to get back into the memory game. Tan recently talked about new memory architectures that are now “strategically interesting,” and have earned the unexpected place of being one of Tan’s “pet projects,” reports note.
In fact, Tan also noted recently that there is plenty of room for innovation in the memory industry, and even has some new methods in the pipe for stacking memory directly on top of a central processing unit (CPU). This, coupled with the recent surge in demand for memory in nearly all of its forms, leaves open significant possibilities. Tan used to be opposed to such a concept, considering memory a “commodity” of sorts. But with the innovation potential, there is now newfound room for Intel to step in and make something new and exciting.
Buying in at the Top
Meanwhile, building on the news we have seen lately about Intel’s $20 billion stock sale, it turns out that Lip-Bu Tan took a direct hand in that round of sales. Tan personally put in—along with another unnamed family member—$12 million for shares at the public offering price.
There might have been some who were concerned that Intel stock may be fully valued, that it has topped out, and it is likely to see a correction. But the idea that Lip-Bu Tan is personally buying in for $12 million suggests that there is likely to be some growth ahead after all. Or, at the very least, that Lip-Bu Tan desperately wants investors to believe that, and so desperately that he is willing to put eight figures worth of cash behind it.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on seven Buys, 24 Holds and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 339.74% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $118.93 per share implies 15.78% upside potential.
