By all appearances, Intel
Sales, net income, and earnings per share were up 14.7%, 16%, and 22.2% respectively. Considering the company's sales and net income figures are in the billions, that's solid growth. On the balance sheet, the company also managed to work down its inventory from a quite high $3.2 billion last year to $2.7 billion this year.
This inventory improvement is the most interesting aspect, because it seems to have come at the expense of margins. This adds a bit to the story that AMD's
This morning, I saw a number of comments attributing Intel's 5% stock slide today to its overly rich price and its failure to surpass estimates. That may be. Thankfully, I'm not in the business of trying to explain a one-day move.
But if I had to pick the most significant aspect of today's Intel news, I'd choose the competitive threats Intel faces, and its decline in margins, over its earnings. Yes, microprocessor sales were a record for the quarter, but that was helped by Microsoft
I'm not crazy enough to predict that Intel will lose its dominance any time soon. The company can use its very strong free cash flow to regain control of the market and its margins, and it should also have a decent amount of Apple
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Nathan Parmelee has no financial interest in any of the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool has an ironclad disclosure policy.