New York, Feb 13, 2026, 10:54 ET — Regular session
- Intel clawed back roughly 2% in morning trading, recovering some ground after tumbling sharply the previous day.
- The sector found its footing as softer U.S. inflation numbers landed and Applied Materials delivered a bullish outlook.
- Intel’s ability to resolve data-center supply issues is on traders’ radar ahead of its upcoming earnings report.
Intel stock bounced Friday, regaining ground after Thursday’s drop. Investors weighed new U.S. inflation numbers and a rally across chipmakers. By late morning in New York, shares added roughly 2.1%, trading at $47.48.
Rate bets keep dictating where tech stocks head, making timing crucial—especially for chipmakers, who’ve been jerked around by every new data release that nudges the Fed’s outlook. Fresh figures showed consumer prices up 0.2% in January, missing the 0.3% estimate, and the year-over-year CPI easing to 2.4%, according to Reuters.
Intel fell behind from the start. Shares dropped 3.75% Thursday, settling at $46.48—a weaker showing than most major chip names as U.S. indexes declined.
Chip stocks got a boost after Applied Materials soared 11% on Friday, lifted by an upbeat forecast that beat estimates. The company pointed to surging AI demand and a limited memory chip supply. “Artificial intelligence infrastructure demand is immense, and supply is scarce,” Morningstar analyst William Kerwin told Reuters. Reuters
Action in the major chip stocks was uneven. Intel snapped higher, but that rally stood out; Nvidia dropped roughly 1.7%, with AMD and Taiwan Semiconductor not moving much.
Investors took note of Intel’s latest security disclosure involving its data-center lineup. The company revealed that, during a joint probe with Google’s cloud security team, five vulnerabilities had turned up in Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) on Xeon processors—a hardware tool built to keep “confidential” virtual machines apart. Intel says all five were addressed by a firmware update baked into the newest TDX module code. Network World
Execution is still Intel’s headache. The company last month projected first-quarter revenue and earnings that missed Wall Street’s targets and admitted it’s having trouble meeting AI data-center demand for its server chips. Shares took a hard hit after the update.
Still, things could flip. If inflation data comes in stronger, yields might climb and chip stocks could take a hit. Intel, in particular, usually feels it first whenever supply jitters flare up or questions about product edge return—its rivals tend to have a smoother growth pitch.
Intel’s earnings are up next, with the company scheduled to report quarterly results April 23, per Yahoo Finance’s earnings calendar.
