Once a darling among microprocessor manufacturers, Intel (INTC -6.10%) has lost considerable market share in recent years to the likes of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -0.06%) and Nvidia (NVDA 1.18%). Alas, the idea of retiring with seven figures from a buy-and-hold position in Intel shares has become little more than a pleasant pipe dream.
Or has it? Intel stock lost over half of its value in 2022, making it look deeply oversold compared to its rivals. But then, buying a stock just because it seems cheap is an easy way to lose millions, not make them.
A comfortable retirement, unfortunately, isn't as simple as loading up on one stock and turning off the screen for a few decades. That said, it's worth investigating whether a long-term position in Intel stock can turn apparently dead money into a multibagger.
Traders have priced in a plethora of problems
Just a year ago, getting Intel down to a $110 billion market cap was unthinkable. Yet, here we are, and Intel's trailing-12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 5.76 ought to get any dyed-in-the-wool contrarian's senses tingling.
After all, Intel's $110 billion market cap looks unreasonably low for a company that expects to rake in revenue of $65 billion to $68 billion in just one year -- and an unusually challenging chip-market year, at that. Meanwhile, Intel's Mobileye segment reported record revenue during the second quarter. On top of all that, Intel continues to pay a 5%+ annual dividend yield, and dividend reinvestment is among the smartest ways to achieve millionaire status in retirement.
So, why have financial traders been so pessimistic lately? Surely, they're not particularly fond of the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes or Intel's loss of domestic-chip-leader status. They probably also didn't much care for Intel's 22% year-over-year second-quarter 2022 revenue decline or the company's stated expectation that the total addressable market for PCs would decline 10% this year.
Getting back on the front foot
Just maybe, though, intrepid investors can see the glass as half full. Could Intel's downbeat PC market forecast and the company's revenue miss provide a setup for a current-quarter Street beat?
Maybe yes, maybe no -- but then, this is about the long trade and building toward retirement, not flipping shares for a quick buck. The future might still belong to Intel, then, if the company can regain its footing as a top-tier tech titan.
Easier said than done, right? Yet, Intel might actually be up to the task as CEO Pat Gelsinger and company came out swinging at the company's recent Intel Innovation event. Then and there, Intel unveiled a spate of fresh products, some of which could literally and figuratively be game changers.
In what may be construed as a single-handed attempt to revive the PC chip market, Intel revealed its 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900K, billed as the "world's fastest desktop processor." With this, gamers, streamers, and others can enjoy "blazing clock speeds" of up to 5.8 gigahertz. Without a doubt, this is a direct salvo against Advanced Micro Devices' Ryzen 9 7950X chip, which tops out at 5.7 megahertz.
Intel also took aim at Nvidia with its new Arc A770 GPU, which will launch on Oct. 12 with a wallet-friendly list price of $329. For comparison, Nvidia's RTX 4090 card retails for an eye-watering $1,599. It appears, then, that Intel will attempt to compete with Nvidia on price rather than sheer speed and power; Gelsinger made this refocus crystal-clear when he said about graphics chips generally, "They've just gotten super expensive, and we don't think they need to be. We're about to fix that."
Learning to love Intel again
So, will Intel stock be a millionaire-maker for future retirees? There are no guarantees, but low expectations for the PC market -- and for the company itself -- could propel Intel back into investors' good graces.
At the very least, there's a deeply discounted, established giant with high-demand products, ambitious leadership, and budget-conscious customer appeal to be considered here. Besides, you can collect those generous dividend distributions along the way while waiting for the market to remember why it loved Intel in the first place: It's all about the dazzling tech products, forever driven by relentless innovation.