What: Shares of Intel Corporation (INTC 0.61%) gained about 2% this morning after Jefferies reiterated its buy rating on the chip gorilla.
So what: Along with the buy rating, analyst Mark Lipacus planted a price target of $32 on the stock, representing about 18% worth of upside to yesterday's close. While value investors might be turned off by the stock's solid run in recent months, Lipacus believes there's plenty of room to run given his expectation of strong margin improvement going forward.
Now what: Jefferies thinks Intel is particularly attractive ahead of its Q4. "Long term our analysis indicates that Intel could have a 50% pricing advantage in processors in 12 months and a 66% in 36 months, which leads us to model share gains in tablets and smartphones and project a bull case EPS scenario of ~$3 in 2016," Lipacis noted. "Near term, we think momentum investors will find Intel's bottoming gross margins and low expectations difficult to ignore." More importantly, with Intel trading at a forward P/E of 13 and boasting a dividend yield of 3.5%, the downside seems limited enough to buy into that bull talk.
