patrick.net

Keeping in mind that I don't know what the hell I'm doing other than being reasonably intelligent and somewhat analytical...

I bought Intel at an average price of $20.50 over the past year, and decided to sell it earlier in the week (sure wish I had waited a few more days)...I was thinking that it feels a bit pricey...so I sold...Again, I don't know anything about this business, really...but the recent price run-up scared me off.

You might want to take your profit and sit tight for a while until you see another opportunity...that's what I'm doing.

There are some really bullish short term signs for intc.
The non-chart gang is going jump me - bring it on.
(Short term to me is weeks at most)

Intersting read on Intel and MS.
MS : "Drop in Windows sales is a mystery." Indeed.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748703879704577166852554126014.html?mod=BOL_hpp_dc

If Intel can manage to overcome the hurdles of bringing their chips to smartphones, they'll do extremely well in the coming decade.

There are a few big risks:

1. They never achieve the price/performance/efficiency range that is BETTER THAN the leading ARM vendors (Samsung, TI, NVIDIA)

2. They do produce a superior SOC, but the cost of developers to target both architectures is too high, so most don't bother, and as a result most apps fail to run on intel-based phones.

3. Lawsuits. Intel has a massive patent portfolio, but so do the ARM vendors, many of whom were intel competitors before they gained their near monopoly.

4. Vendor preferences. Given how things turned out with desktop PCs, manufacturers are going to be very cautious about letting intel get into this market. Many of the vendors, like samsung, also produce processors that would compete. Most of the others would prefer a competitive chipset space.

A year ago I would have said that #1 was the big barrier, but after CES I'm convinced that they can do it. Doing design and manufacturing in house gives them an advantage over people relying on ARM for design expertise.

#2 is going to be a major problem. On Android, the difficulty is that something like 20-30% of apps use native code, and the android NDK is essentially ARM only now. The android market supports multiple binaries per package, so "in theory" it's just a matter of getting developers to recompile (the way they did with the OSX fat binaries), but I'm skeptical.

They have no chance of convincing apple to switch, and even if they manage to convince microsoft they have no market share in mobile at this point.

My gut feeling is that intel will not be in the consumer CPU business 20 years from now, and will instead focus on server chips, and other semiconductors.

This could still mean that they do well, of course. As more and more processing moves server side, intel will thrive.

I have no idea, but with their current dividend yield there is no real reason to sell it.

Kevin says

If Intel can manage to overcome the hurdles of bringing their chips to smartphones, they'll do extremely well in the coming decade.
There are a few big risks:
1. They never achieve the price/performance/efficiency range that is BETTER THAN the leading ARM vendors (Samsung, TI, NVIDIA)
...
My gut feeling is that intel will not be in the consumer CPU business 20 years from now, and will instead focus on server chips, and other semiconductors.

This could still mean that they do well, of course. As more and more processing moves server side, intel will thrive.

Good stuff.
Intel has a deep moat on server market.
I luv'd the Opteron so much I bought AMD stocks in 2006.
Eventually, Intel regained the ground lost and I lost some AMD$.

swebb says

Keeping in mind that I don't know what the hell I'm doing other than being reasonably intelligent and somewhat analytical...

That's 2 skills better than me. :)

Thanks all!

Doing design and manufacturing in house gives them an advantage over people relying on ARM for design expertise.
Kevin, nice analysis of the various risk factors. I was just reading that Intel will be going to FinFETs in their next process technology jump, a couple (or several) years before everyone else. At the very least, they can put up a strong fight on the server side, and maybe make inroads in tablets. I think Microsoft and Windows 8 is the wildcard. My tendency is to say that MS is hosed as they're in unenviable position of trying to make their bloatware more efficient for mobile platforms. That said, they tend not to get it right the first time (CE, Zune), but if they keep at it they end up with a product that wins share (NT server). I'll certainly be impressed if WinTel can ever thrive in the mobile space as they're roadkill at this point...

If I 'm being completely honest, since I'd never personally buy an Intel processor, I'd have trouble owning their stock.

Thanks! All's well here.

Any chance of it going to $72 like in 2000? :)

EBGuy says

Doing design and manufacturing in house gives them an advantage over people relying on ARM for design expertise.

Kevin, nice analysis of the various risk factors. I was just reading that Intel will be going to FinFETs in their next process technology jump, a couple (or several) years before everyone else. At the very least, they can put up a strong fight on the server side, and maybe make inroads in tablets. I think Microsoft and Windows 8 is the wildcard. My tendency is to say that MS is hosed as they're in unenviable position of trying to make their bloatware more efficient for mobile platforms. That said, they tend not to get it right the first time (CE, Zune), but if they keep at it they end up with a product that wins share (NT server). I'll certainly be impressed if WinTel can ever thrive in the mobile space as they're roadkill at this point...

Microsoft has had three products that were really successful after trying and trying and trying. The meme that "they succeed eventually" has been true three times out of dozens in their 30-odd year history.

Also, Microsoft is supporting ARM in windows 8 anyway, so they don't seem to confident in Intel anymore either.

E-man says

Hope everything worked out for you. With respect to INTC, the stock broke out above its resistance of about $23.50, so that should be your support now. However, the stock is short-term over-bought and is in the upper range of the bollinger band so a consolidation of about $1.00 to $1.50 or so is likely coming.

However, the whole market is over-bought at this time. I raised some cash by selling some oil stocks this past Friday. Currently waiting for another entry point.

Best of luck. :)

I also agree with this.

I think the best analysis of why intel will fail at entering the arm/cell phone market is that they're intel. No one wants to deal with them, unless they have to. They're there right now because there is no alternative. Even they couldn't convince people to give the itanium a shot. People want x86, and they don't want anything else.

If we do get to a point where people want something else (like tablets, cell phones, etc) they won't choose intel, because they're intel. It's not worth the headaches and legal battles to do business with them.

Kevin says

My gut feeling is that intel will not be in the consumer CPU business 20 years from now, and will instead focus on server chips, and other semiconductors.
This could still mean that they do well, of course. As more and more processing moves server side, intel will thrive.

If the Handset is considered the Client where prices will continue to drop and IT infrust. being the Server which provide the backbone of all handset services, I think Intel will do very well focusing on Server side which the bigger telecom clients will continue to use.

At the end, while you may not visably see it.. Its still Powered by Intel.

You have to look at the financials, both Yahoo and Google have those, it's public information. Does the stock price match the reality?

This hyena is getting a little tired. If I'm a trader ( I 'm not), this could be a good time to take profit.
kt1652 says

There are some really bullish short term signs for intc.

INTC taking a big dump today. Way more than the market as w whole.

That's what you get with bad results.
They should try selling processors, like, faster than 2 years ago.