Skip to main content

Intel cuts outlook -- confirms cautionary signal in Durable Goods report

From Business Wire today we have this report:
Intel Corporation (INTC) today announced that third-quarter revenue will be below the company's previous outlook. The company now expects third-quarter revenue to be $11.0 billion, plus or minus $200 million, compared to the previous expectation of between $11.2 and $12.0 billion. Revenue is being affected by weaker than expected demand for consumer PCs in mature markets. Inventories across the supply chain appear to be in-line with the company's revised expectations.

The company's expectation for third-quarter gross margin is now 66 percent, plus or minus a point, lower than the previous expectation of 67 percent, plus or minus a couple of points. The impact of lower volume is being partially offset by slightly higher average selling prices stemming from solid enterprise demand.

It's surprising that just over a month ago, Intel reported stellar earnings and very positive forward guidance. Now today we suddenly have this update to the company's outlook.

Apparently, this confirms the suspicions of several analysts from JPMorgan, Barclays and Wedbush who have been saying that PC demand is clearly slowing.

Then there is this chart from my post on the recent Durable Goods report for July:


This shows new orders in the Computers and Related Products segment falling 12.7% month-over-month. Historically speaking, this is a larger than usual decline and there is little doubt that Intel is beginning to see the drop in demand that this chart suggests.

Something I didn't chart in the post on the Durable Goods report is Unfilled Orders. After two months where unfilled orders grew at over 5% month-over-month, in July we saw a decline of more than 7%.

I've been a cheerleader for tech in general and semiconductors in particular but it does look like growth is taking a breather. From the point of view of stock prices, we are now seeing solid, market leading companies such as Intel and Cree reaching levels of quite attractive valuation. The following charts show how beaten down these two companies are currently:




Given how volatile the semiconductor sector is, it's always worth watching. A few pieces of unexpected good news and it could turn on a dime. You'll want to be ready for it when companies like Intel and Cree begin their recovery.

Disclosure: no positions

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Brazil - in a bubble or on a roll?

A couple of years ago, no one recognized the real estate bubble even though it was under everyone's nose. Now, analysts and bloggers are seeing bubbles everywhere they look. One of them, they say is in Brazil whose Bovespa stock market index has doubled in the last 12 months. Does the bubble accusation hold water? I don't think so and here are 7 reasons why Brazil is by no means a bubble economy: Exports have held up over the past year thanks to demand from China for Brazil's soya exports and iron ore. This was helped by the the Brazilian government's drive to improve trade links with Asia and Africa. Export diversification, spurred by a more active trade policy and increased focus on "south-south" trade under current president Lula, helped mitigate the decline in demand from OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries A "sensible" economic framework has been in place since the 1990's. This has included inflation ...

Trade Radar gets another update

Some of our data sources changed again and it impacted our ability to load fundamental/financial data. In response, we are rolling out a new version of the software: 7.1.24 The data sourcing issues are fixed and some dead links in the Chart menu were removed. So whether you are a registered user or someone engaged in the free trial, head over to our update page and download the latest version. The update page is here:   https://tradingstockalerts.com/software/downloadpatch Contact us if you have questions or identify any new issues.

Time to be conservative with your 401K

Most of the posts I and other financial bloggers write are typically focused on individual stocks or ETFs and managing active portfolios. For those folks who are more conservative investors, those whose main investment vehicle is a 401K, for example, the techniques for portfolio management might be a little different. The news of stock markets falling and pundits predicting recession is disconcerting to professional investors as well as to those of us who are watching our balances in an IRA or 401K sag. What approach should the average 401K investor take? Let's assume that the investor is contributing on a regular basis to one of these retirement accounts. There are two questions that the investor needs to ask: 1. Should I stop putting the regular contribution into stocks? My feeling is that investors making regular contributions are being handed a present by the markets. Every week the market goes down, these investors are lowering their average cost. When markets reco...