Intel shares fell 28.58% on Friday 30 October to close at $65.76, the stock's worst day since 1974, after the company guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15–16 billion against the $17.1 billion analysts polled by LSEG expected, according to CNBC. Reddit fell 29.22% the same day, to $91.73, after its own fourth-quarter sales outlook came in below consensus, according to closing data from StockAnalysis.
Financial analyst Ruslan Averin sees the two drops as one message from the market in the last week of October: after a long AI rally, a third-quarter beat no longer protects a stock whose next-quarter guidance is weak. On the same Friday the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.86% to 25,437.00, its worst day since June, CNBC reported.
Q3 beat, Q4 miss: the numbers
Intel published third-quarter 2026 results on Thursday 29 October at 4:01 p.m. EDT, after the US close.
| Line | Actual or guide | LSEG consensus | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 revenue | $16.51 billion | $16.5 billion | Intel, LSEG via CNBC |
| Q3 adjusted EPS | $0.52 | $0.40 | Intel, LSEG via CNBC |
| Q3 non-GAAP gross margin | 44.1% | — | Intel |
| Q4 revenue guide | $15.0–16.0 billion | $17.1 billion | Intel, LSEG via CNBC |
| Q4 adjusted EPS guide | $0.25 | $0.43 | Intel, LSEG via CNBC |
| Q4 non-GAAP gross margin guide | 38.0% | — | Intel |
Third-quarter revenue rose 21% from $13.7 billion a year earlier. Data Center and AI revenue jumped 78% to $7.3 billion and Intel Foundry revenue rose 58% to $6.7 billion, the release shows. The PC business, now called the Client Computing and Physical AI Group, shrank 5% to $8.1 billion.
The fourth-quarter midpoint of $15.5 billion is 9.4% below the LSEG consensus and 6.1% below the quarter just reported. The 25-cent EPS guide is 42% below the 43 cents analysts expected. The non-GAAP gross margin is guided down 6.1 percentage points from the third quarter, to 38.0%.
Why the guide fell short: PCs, a fab accident and supply
First, PCs. CFO David Zinsner said: "We see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year." Global PC shipments fell 4% in the second quarter, Counterpoint Research data cited by CNBC show.
Second, Israel. An explosion at an Intel fab in Israel earlier in October killed two workers. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the accident caused an extended shutdown that affects shipments of 10-nanometre chips, and Intel expects it to cost about $600 million of revenue over two quarters, CNBC reported.
Third, supply. Tan said on the call that Intel could not meet strong customer demand in the quarter, CNBC reported. In the release, he called unlocking more supply for the Xeon server family the company's immediate priority.
A simple check on the size of these effects: if the $600 million fab hit is split evenly across two quarters, about $300 million falls in the fourth quarter. That explains less than a fifth of the $1.6 billion gap between the guide midpoint and consensus. The rest is PC demand and supply limits, which are slower to fix than a single plant.
Data centre and foundry: what management said
The AI part of the story did not break. Data Center and AI earned $3.04 billion of operating income in the quarter on $7.3 billion of revenue, the release shows. Intel Foundry still lost $1.85 billion, though less than the $2.32 billion loss a year earlier.
On manufacturing, CNBC reported that 18A is in high-volume production at the new Arizona fab and that the next Arizona fab is expected to begin operations by the end of 2028. Intel released the 0.9 process design kit for its 14A node in October and is working with ASML on High-NA EUV readiness, the release says.
What Intel still lacks is a major external foundry customer for its newest nodes, CNBC noted. Tan put a deadline on it: "We're going to have a couple of customers ready to announce the next two quarters." A $23 billion equity offering completed in August gives Intel time to wait.
The stock: from +150% to the worst day in five decades
Intel closed at $92.07 on Thursday 29 October, already down 3.62% on the day, and at $65.76 on Friday, according to StockAnalysis. Friday volume was 455.6 million shares.
Before the report the stock was up about 150% for the year, CNBC noted: it ended 2025 at $36.90, according to Yahoo Finance data. After Friday the gain is about 78%, and the price is 53% below the closing high of $140.94 reached on Monday 22 June.
The US government holds 433 million Intel shares bought at an average of $20.47, and the stake lost about $11 billion in value on Friday, by CNBC's calculation. Bank of America, Roth Capital, Seaport Research and D.A. Davidson cut Intel to neutral, while New Street upgraded it to buy, CNBC reported.
Reddit: a search-traffic warning costs 29%
Reddit's third quarter beat: revenue rose 53% to $895 million against the $878 million LSEG consensus, and EPS was $1.40 against $1.35, CNBC reported. But US daily active uniques fell 2% to 50.7 million, short of the 53.5 million analysts expected, and the company guided fourth-quarter revenue to $1.00–1.03 billion, below the $1.05 billion consensus. CEO Steve Huffman said search referral traffic fell meaningfully in the quarter and would keep falling in the fourth quarter, and Reddit will test a login requirement outside the US. The stock fell from $129.60 to $91.73, its worst day since the 2024 IPO, and is now down 60% from its 2025 year-end close of $229.87, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The broader AI selloff in the last week of October
The Nasdaq Composite ended the week of 26–30 October down 2.0%, from 25,955.34 to 25,437.00, and lost 5.3% in October, according to CNBC and Yahoo Finance data.
On Friday the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 7.2% to 10,688.80, by my calculation from Yahoo Finance closes. Qualcomm lost 11.1%, AMD 10.9%, Broadcom 5.5%, Micron 5.3% and Nvidia 4.2%. On Thursday Alphabet had its worst day on record after its third-quarter report, CNBC noted, and Amazon slipped 1.4% on Friday after its own results (my Amazon Q3 review).
The theme is the one I described in the Nasdaq's worst week of October and in the September chip selloff: investors now pay for AI cash returns, not AI spending. Levered names such as CoreWeave and stocks priced for perfection go first.
What would have to happen for Intel to recover
In my view, the June case for Intel in the Google foundry rally article rested on foundry customers and AI servers. Neither failed this week; the near-term earnings path did.
I would look for four things before the stock can rebuild:
- Q4 delivered at the top of the range. Revenue near $16.0 billion with gross margin of at least 38%.
- The Israel fab back online. The $600 million hit is temporary if the plant restarts by early 2027.
- Named 14A customers. One large external customer within Tan's two-quarter deadline would matter more than any quarterly number.
- A PC floor. Any stabilisation before the second half of 2027 would lift the biggest segment.
The bear case is a second weak guide in January and no foundry customer by mid-2027. Then Intel trades on the PC cycle again, and "dead money", as Seaport's Jay Goldberg put it, is the likely path.
What to watch next
- Tuesday 3 November: US midterm elections; chip and tariff policy are in the background.
- Second half of November: Nvidia's quarterly report, the next test for AI chip demand.
- Late January 2027: Intel's fourth-quarter report and first-quarter guide, the first check on the fab restart and PC demand.
- By mid-2027: the end of Tan's two-quarter window for 14A customer announcements.
Related: Intel's foundry rally in June 2026, the Nasdaq's worst week of October 2026 and the AI slowdown warning and chip selloff.