Intel (INTC -6.56%) stock is seeing big sell-offs Friday following the company's first-quarter report. The company's share price was down 7% as of 2:45 p.m. ET and had been down as much as 10% earlier in the session.
Intel's sales and earnings results in the first quarter actually came in significantly ahead of Wall Street's expectations, but it looks like near-term performance will be uneven. The company issued soft forward guidance, and the significance of its Q1 performance beats was negated by a weaker outlook in the face of macroeconomic challenges and uncertainty on what its foundry strategy looks like.
Intel's non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share of $0.13 on revenue of $12.67 billion came in significantly ahead of the average analyst estimate's call for per-share earnings of $0.01 on sales of $12.3 billion. But it looks like trade war dynamics and general macroeconomic uncertainty may have caused customers to pull orders forward, and management's near-term guidance is spurring big sell-offs for the stock.
With Intel's midpoint guidance targeting sales of $11.8 billion in the second quarter, it looks like revenue could be on track to decline roughly 7% on a sequential basis. Earnings are also poised to take a hit, with the company's target for a break-even run falling significantly short of the average analyst estimate's call for a per-share profit of $0.06 in the period.
On Intel's Q1 investor conference call, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said that he had met with officials from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to discuss a potential collaboration between the two companies. Reports earlier this month suggested that TSMC could wind up helping run Intel's fabs through a joint venture that would see it take a 20% stake in the new entity in exchange for providing engineering insights and operational support.
While Tan said that the two companies had met to discuss potential collaborations, he didn't give any indication that a major new partnership was moving forward. Intel's chip foundry business is potentially an important national resource for the U.S., but it's been generating big losses -- and many investors have been hoping that TSMC or other chip giants will step in and help strengthen the unit.
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