Intel’s stock dropped around 30% overnight, shaving some $39 billion from the company’s market capitalization since rumors of a pending layoff first emerged. The devastating results come after the chip giant reported a loss for the second quarter, complained about yield issues with the Meteor Lake CPU, provided a modest business outlook for the next few quarters, and announced plans to lay off 15,000 people worldwide.
When the NYSE closed on July 31, Intel’s market capitalization was $130.86 billion. Then, a report about Intel’s massive layoffs was published, and the company’s market capitalization dropped sharply to $123.96 billion on August 1. Following Intel’s financial report yesterday, the company’s capitalization dropped to $91.86 billion. Essentially, Intel has lost half of its capitalization since January. As of now, Intel’s market value is a fraction of Nvidia’s worth and less than half of AMD’s.
As Intel’s actions look rather desperate, analysts believe that Intel’s challenges are existential. “Intel’s issues are now approaching the existential,” Stacy Rasgon, an analyst with Bernstein, told Reuters.
Burst layoffs to polish up earnings reports are “fine” (in terms of stocks), but hemorrhaging workers when your company is already in hot water for product quality complaints smells of “We’re really desperate to make our reports not look devastating”. From a stupid monkey brain point of view, it sounds like they’re throwing sailors overboard to avoid sinking and I wouldn’t want to be a passenger and risk being next, so I’d try to sell what shares I have before they’re worthless.
I don’t know what heuristics professional traders go with, but I imagine they would follow a more complex and nuanced logic along those same lines. Either way, if enough people do that, it compounds.