Investors Buy Large Volume of Intel Call Options (NASDAQ:INTC)

Intel Co. (NASDAQ:INTC) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock traders acquired 697,868 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 50% compared to the typical volume of 464,892 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on INTC. Bank of America upgraded shares of Intel from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the company from $19.00 to $25.00 in a research report on Thursday, March 13th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Intel in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Benchmark reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Intel in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Intel from $28.00 to $25.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, HSBC upgraded shares of Intel from a “reduce” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-eight have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $27.04.

Institutional Trading of Intel

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of INTC. Atom Investors LP purchased a new stake in Intel in the third quarter worth $624,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. grew its position in shares of Intel by 35,983.5% in the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 32,836 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $770,000 after purchasing an additional 32,745 shares in the last quarter. Investment Management Corp of Ontario raised its stake in shares of Intel by 49.1% during the 3rd quarter. Investment Management Corp of Ontario now owns 141,299 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $3,315,000 after purchasing an additional 46,500 shares during the period. IHT Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Intel by 12.1% in the 3rd quarter. IHT Wealth Management LLC now owns 189,839 shares of the chip maker’s stock worth $4,403,000 after purchasing an additional 20,453 shares during the period. Finally, Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Intel during the 3rd quarter valued at about $354,000. 64.53% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Intel Stock Up 2.0 %

Shares of INTC traded up $0.45 on Thursday, reaching $22.43. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 240,880,806 shares, compared to its average volume of 75,509,409. The company has a current ratio of 1.33, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $22.36 and a 200-day moving average of $22.20. Intel has a twelve month low of $18.51 and a twelve month high of $41.65. The stock has a market capitalization of $97.81 billion, a PE ratio of -5.12 and a beta of 1.13.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The chip maker reported ($0.02) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.14). Intel had a negative net margin of 35.32% and a negative return on equity of 3.27%. Equities analysts predict that Intel will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

About Intel

Intel Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells computing and related products and services worldwide. It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center and AI, Network and Edge, Mobileye, and Intel Foundry Services segments. The company's products portfolio comprises central processing units and chipsets, system-on-chips (SoCs), and multichip packages; mobile and desktop processors; hardware products comprising graphics processing units (GPUs), domain-specific accelerators, and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); and memory and storage, connectivity and networking, and other semiconductor products.