Intel Analyst Roundup Following Q4 Earnings

Intel Corporation INTC beat Q4 earnings expectations Thursday and the stock traded at $36.18 mid-day Friday, down 0.11 percent.

Analysts commented on the stock following the earnings announcement. Below are highlights along with current ratings and price targets.

Jefferies - Buy, $50 price target

“We're Betting on Intel's Data Center Group (DCG). To say DCG is a hidden gem is an understatement. DCG posted 25 percent YY growth and 55 percent op margins in 4Q14, and for 2014 the $14 billion business posted 18 percent growth and 51 percent op margins, better than the 9-yr CAGR of 15 percent, as all four segments (Enterprise, Cloud, High-Performance Computing, Networking) posted growth. We think Intel's new server cycle (Grantley) helps in 2015, but view drivers in DCG to be largely secular.”

Deutsche Bank - Buy, $42 price target

“INTC continues to execute superbly across all segments. DCG grew 11 percent q/q, which help offset the slight channel inventory burn in PCG. Importantly, the gap between Intel and PC market shipments shrunk considerably from 15 percent  y/y in 3Q to 6 percent in 4Q. We remain confident in our thesis that INTC can continue to gain share in a stabilized PC market, see growth in DCG, shrink losses in Mobile, and return meaningful cash to shareholders ($12b repo remaining).”

Stifel - Buy, $41 price targetv

“Intel delivered in-line results (save a tax benefit to the bottom line), gave roughly in-line guidance and maintained its 2015 outlook. Most times boring is good. Interesting to us was that Intel's average selling price of its data center platforms increased 7 percent q/q and 10 percent y/y. We expect this trend to continue into 2015 as High Performance Computing, Cloud and mega-Data Center markets push for higher performance and, in our view, Intel has few competitors in these markets. The PC market has clearly stabilized and the company's PC outlook is roughly in-line with market researchers' estimates.”

Credit Suisse - Outperform, $40 price target

“INTC reported DecQ Rev in-line/EPS above Street on better than expected GM; and guided MarQ Rev/EPS essentially in-line with CS, but modestly below Street. More Importantly, INTC maintained full year guide for both Rev, GM and Spending. We are maintaining our CY15 EPS at $2.40 and initiating CY16 EPS of $2.75 (Street at 2.39/$2.67 respectively).”

Barclays - Equal Weight, $32 price target

“Q1 Guidance Revenue Guided in Line, GM and EPS Below: Guide of $13.7BN +/- $500M was in line with Street and roughly in line with typical seasonality. Intel declined to provide direction color by segment. GMs are expected to be down meaningfully (60.0 percent) as low initial 14nm yields begin to have an impact as Broadwell ramps - full year still 62 percent. This combined with slightly lower Opex ($4.9B) this yields implied EPS of $0.48, below Street $0.51 and closer to our $0.49.”

Oppenheimer - Perform, no price target

“INTC trades 15x our new CY16E EPS (ex-cash) vs. peers' 13x. Mgmt's muted GM outlook, and continued headwinds in mobile, lead us to expect shares will be under pressure Friday. Longer term growth/profitability concerns in MCG and the secular decline in PCG keep us sidelined here.”