Intel stock closes higher on Friday, ahead of most other Dow Jones members

• Stifel reduced its price target on Intel stock.
• Intel is scheduled to deliver earnings for Q3 next week.
• Wall Street expects adjusted EPS of $-0.03 on revenue of $13.04 billion.
• Dow Jones closes 0.6% lower despite bouncing around during the session.

Intel (INTC) stock advanced to highs above 3% on Friday despite a prominent Wall Street analyst cutting his price target on the stock. Stifel’s Ruben Roy lowered his price target on Intel from $28 to $25.

INTC stock ended Friday up 1.5% to $22.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), of which Intel is a member, closed 0.6% lower as the NASDAQ gained a similar amount.

Intel stock news

Intel is coming up on its third-quarter earnings release on October 31, which happens to be Halloween. The market is hoping to get through the spookiness with adjusted earnings per share of $-0.03 next week and revenue of $13.04 billion.

Intel earned $0.41 on $14.16 billion one year ago in that third quarter.

Stifel’s Roy says that a lot will depend on whether or not Intel can execute on its 18A initiative. The 18A project is Intel Foundry’s RibbonFET transistor, which replaces its FinFET transistor with a gate-all-around (GAA) transistor model. Roy also hopes to hear about the technology roadmap for the 14A node, Intel’s platform for a high numerical value EUV foundry process.

RibbonFET from Intel’s investor relations website

On Thursday, Intel discovered that the EU’s Court of Justice denied a $1.2 billion antitrust case from moving forward, unusually good news for a semiconductor that has had nothing but bad news of late.

CEO Pat Gelsinger is still searching for a minority partner to take a stake in Altera, the programmable chip unit it bought in 2015. Intel values it at $17 billion, only a little higher than what it paid a decade ago, as it searches to free up capital for its large-scale pivot toward the foundry segment of the semiconductor industry.

Intel stock forecast

INTC stock has risen above the 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) over the past month, which is a good look for the struggling semiconductor. Now shares need to overtake resistance at $24.90. The 100-day SMA at $25.52 is just a big higher.

Everything hings on next Thursday’s earnings release though, so positioning for technical reasons loses its attractiveness.