While Fools should generally take the opinion of Wall Street with a grain of salt, it's not a bad idea to take a closer look at particularly stock-shaking upgrades and downgrades -- just in case their reasoning behind the call makes sense.
What: Shares of Intel Corporation (INTC 1.77%) had a sluggish morning after RBC Capital Markets downgraded the chip giant from "Outperform" to "Sector Perform."
So what: Along with the downgrade, analyst Doug Freedman lowered his price target to $26 (from $27), representing about 10% worth of upside to yesterday's close. While contrarian traders might be attracted to the stock's recent slide, Freedman believes that the near-term potential remains limited given his view that Intel's big mobile spending won't pay off for a few more years.
Now what: RBC remains uncertain about how Intel's mobile efforts will translate into actual revenue and profit leverage. "After the Q3 earnings call, we believed Intel would lay out a case for improving operating margins at its analyst day, but this did not transpire," noted RBC. "Instead, the 2014 outlook was uninspiring, while Intel is in our view unwisely chasing/spending aggressively in new mobile initiatives that are going to be a drag on operating margins in the years to come." Given Intel's still-dominant scale and near-4% dividend yield, however, RBC's mobile concerns might be providing patient Fools with a juicy long-term income opportunity.
