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

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.

Unlock Stock Market Profits - Key #4

This is the fourth article in a series of posts describing 10 tools to help you identify and evaluate good investing ideas. It is based on a post that provides a summary of the ten keys that individual investors should use to identify profitable stock trades. ( Click here to read the original post ) With this fourth post, we will continue another step along the path of finding stocks that seem to have some potential. The first post in the series discussed how to use unusual activity to identify investing ideas. The second post described how to use stock screeners. The third post described how to use lists of new highs and new lows. This post will focus on identifying social or business trends in order to find investing ideas. Information on new trends might turn up anywhere. In conversation with friends or business associates, in newspapers or magazines, on TV or though your work. The key is to be aware of trends and how they start, stop or change. We'll start by describing what...

Business Intelligence consolidation - who's next?

We have seen a consolidation wave begin in the Business Intelligence space. IBM just bought Cognos and Oracle recently bought Hyperion. SAP just announced they are buying Business Objects after barely having time to digest their recent acquisition of Pilot Software. There are three major database vendors at this time: IBM with their DB2 product, Oracle with their flagship Oracle database and Microsoft with their SQL Server database. IBM and Oracle now have premier, industrial-strength data analysis and reporting products in their product portfolios that complement their core database products. Microsoft has what, Excel? Actually, Microsoft, like IBM and Oracle, has a suite of proprietary tools that do happen to integrate very well with Excel and SQL Server. Still, IT departments are not deploying the Microsoft tools for heavy-duty corporate use. Microsoft is unique among the big three by their lack of a premier reporting product. It seems safe to assume that Microsoft will be the next...