Intel shares jump after BofA upgrade, citing CPU momentum and foundry growth

Intel’s stock rose sharply in premarket trading after Bank of America upgraded the company’s shares twice, lifting its rating from Underperform to Buy and raising its price target to $135 from $96, according to market coverage published Tuesday.

The move, reflected in trading that showed Intel up about 5% before the open, comes as sell-side analysts continue to reassess both Intel’s core processor business and its push to expand foundry services, where chip manufacturing is sold to outside customers.

BofA’s upgrade thesis, as described in the market report, leaned on expectations for growth tied to Intel’s central processing unit (CPU) roadmap and its manufacturing strategy. CPUs are the main computing chips used across PCs, servers, and other devices, and analyst confidence in that line typically affects how investors underwrite near-term revenue and margins.

Alongside the CPU focus, the bank pointed to “foundry growth prospects.” Foundry refers to the business of making chips for other companies using a company’s manufacturing capacity and process technology. For Intel, that could mean more demand from external customers if its manufacturing output and process competitiveness improve over time.

While the report indicates BofA’s view turned more positive, the details of what changed between the two upgrades were not spelled out in the excerpt available for this story. It also did not specify whether BofA’s price-target increase assumed particular financial targets, specific product ramps, or named customers in Intel’s foundry business.

Intel, for its part, did not issue a company announcement in the material provided here. As a result, investors appear to be reacting primarily to the shift in expectations from a major brokerage rather than to new Intel guidance, earnings figures, or an announced contract.

In the broader semiconductor sector, analyst upgrades can quickly move expectations because the group trades on forward assumptions about product cycles, manufacturing yields, and customer demand. Intel’s dual track of selling its own CPUs and building a broader foundry footprint makes investor scrutiny especially sensitive to progress that is often incremental but difficult to verify until it shows up in results.

Investors will likely watch for corroboration of the upgrade’s logic in Intel’s next disclosures, including any updates on CPU product execution, manufacturing capacity plans, and the pace at which external foundry demand translates into revenue. Until then, the immediate catalyst remains the rating change and the higher price target rather than new operational disclosures from Intel.