Intel (INTC 0.91%) shares were exploring brand-new multiyear highs on Friday thanks to boosted third-quarter guidance. The PC systems industry at large is refilling empty component warehouses, and system demand appears to be on the rise.
Intel doesn't provide mid-quarter guidance updates often, but these releases tend to move markets when they do appear. On an otherwise gloomy market day, Intel shares rose as much as 4.7% in the morning session. Intel shareholders like yours truly can now look back at market-beating returns of 25% over the last year, plus that comfortable 2.3% dividend yield.
The news
Intel's original third-quarter sales guidance pointed to $14.9 billion, give or take $500 million. The new outlook is roughly $15.6 billion, with a $300 million margin of error on either side. The very top of the old view barely eclipsed the bottom end of the updated range, and the midpoint rose 4.7% higher.
Elsewhere, gross margin was boosted by 2 percentage points. Operating expenses will come in $100 million above existing expectations, and the effective income tax rate moved from 21% to 22%.
Doing the math on Intel's detailed guidance, the bottom-line GAAP midpoint moved from $0.60 to $0.68 per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, earnings guidance rose from $0.66 to $0.72 per diluted share. Analysts have been toeing that non-GAAP guidance line, so the guidance update exceeded Wall Street's current expectations.
Market impact
Intel's rosy outlook spilled over into other PC component makers. Memory chip specialist Micron Technology (MU -1.04%) gained 3.7% at most and Intel's archrival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 0.50%) surged as much as 4.1% higher.
In short, investors and market makers took a deep drink of Intel's positive PC market signs. The reaction was very specific, and did not translate into enterprise computing. For example, the enterprise-oriented Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE 0.34%) saw share gains stopping at just 0.6% while consumer-oriented sister company HP (HPQ 0.33%) raced as much as 3.4% higher.
Mind you, the tea leaves were already pointing in this direction. Just three weeks ago, HP noted that the PC market was improving -- and slightly faster than management had expected. Market tracker IDC still saw a decline in global PC sales in the second quarter, but the drop was only half as large as expected.
Regardless, confirmation of these positive tidbits from Intel itself was a welcome relief. We'll know much more in a month or so, when Intel and many other PC component makers are scheduled to report full results for the third calendar quarter.