Intel's poor EMIB-T packaging yields threaten its plans for next year. Per a confidential source, yields are very poor, and EMIB-T may now slip into the following year. The 14A PDK 0.9 matters more for the long term. Intel remains a very strong long-term bull case because yields should improve, though setbacks can arise along the way; whether to avoid this near-term risk is a personal judgment. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

Intel's near-term growth is constrained by a Kiryat Gat factory blast and memory-driven PC weakness. The weak Q4 outlook calls for answers: the blast looks set to cut roughly $300 million of revenue in Q4 and could have a similar impact in Q1, limiting data-center growth. Fab ownership gives Intel pricing power and enterprise demand is strong; external foundry customers would add another tailwind if won. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Nova Lake will allow Intel to take back share. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  … Show more

Intel will probably offer good trading opportunities, but it is not a stock to hold long term. x.com 

Intel is benefiting from this upcycle as a CPU maker and as an overflow and swing producer in foundry, and swing producers always rally more than the low-cost producer in an upcycle. TSMC, Nvidia and ASML showed restraint on capex and pricing, which extended the cycle but cost them volumes that bled to Intel. Stocks run on rate of change: Intel going from dead to maybe not dead was a better long than TSMC going from alive to more alive. x.com  x.com 

Intel's turnaround is driven mainly by the national-security priority of restoring US chip manufacturing and creating a redundancy for TSMC, since Intel has its own foundry while AMD is fabless and relies on TSMC. Agentic AI CPU demand is the catalyst but only half the story. Intel is also coming back from a more distressed position; @rennyzucker notes it carries about $45bn of debt against $15bn of liquid assets, with negative free cash flow. x.com 

Intel's high valuation is hard to justify while its foundry turnaround remains unproven. At about 59x forward earnings, nearly three times TSMC's 19x, Intel has slower projected revenue growth; its foundry lost $2.09 billion in Q2 2026, while TSMC's Q3 operating margin was 58.7%. A politician's stock purchase alone does not make Intel a buy. x.com  x.com 

Intel's foundry may be closer than the market assumes because its UMC 12nm partnership brings external-customer experience and a more customer-friendly design kit. Musk said Terafab plans to use Intel 14A, with Tesla and SpaceX building and running the fabs themselves; that would be an important outside test. Intel still must prove yields, volume and schedules, while Terafab's commercial terms remain unclear. Still bullish, but not enough to add now. x.com 

TSMC may lose pricing power as performance gains shift from shrinking transistors to stacking, interconnects and optics, while logic folding could make older processes competitive. Despite strong leading-edge demand, investors may overestimate the profit share its node leadership can retain. Its cautious expansion and past reluctance toward advanced packaging suggest a risk-averse culture that protects returns but could leave it late to disruptive technologies and key customers. x.com 

Intel looks priced for too much good news before it has actually delivered on anything. Its CPU story was carrying the share price. x.com 

Intel's raised capex signals a 14A customer announcement is coming soon, since CEO Lip-Bu Tan said he would not raise it without a customer lined up. Intel's infrastructure is a nearly priceless national-security asset should China take Taiwan, and rebuilding it would cost far more than its roughly $500B value. President Trump is its biggest fan and pushes companies to do business with Intel, though that support could change when he leaves office in two years. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com