New York, Feb 19, 2026, 07:18 EST — Premarket
Shares of Intel Corp (INTC.O) edged down 0.7% before the bell on Thursday, last trading at $45.16. The chipmaker continued to lag in premarket action.
Shares slipped 1.6% to $45.46 on Wednesday, logging a second consecutive drop, while both the S&P 500 and Dow notched gains. About 63 million Intel shares changed hands—trading volume lagged the 50-day average. The stock sits roughly 17% below its 52-week high from late January.
Intel’s soft patch is significant, with its core challenge still squarely focused on shoring up the data-center business as competitors keep pushing outwards. Nvidia grabbed headlines this week after announcing a multiyear deal with Meta — the agreement covers a hefty rollout of Nvidia’s Arm-powered Grace CPUs and Meta’s plans to buy millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, along with network hardware. The message? The largest AI players are consolidating their supplier lists. “No one deploys AI at Meta’s scale,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. NVIDIA Investor Relations
Richard Windsor at Radio Free Mobile sees Meta’s decision as accelerating Arm CPU uptake in data centers, where Intel’s x86 still runs the show. If major clients keep moving server loads off Intel’s turf, he says, Intel becomes “the real loser.” MarketWatch
Appetite for risk stayed muted. U.S. stock index futures slipped, with investors digesting corporate earnings and heightened U.S.-Iran tensions—factors that pushed oil and gold higher, according to Reuters. “Rising U.S.-Iran tensions are adding a layer of uncertainty,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. Reuters
Intel said Wednesday that CFO David Zinsner is set to join a fireside chat at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, scheduled for March 4 at 8:35 a.m. PT. Investors can catch the webcast on Intel’s investor relations page.
The stock’s been on a rough ride since Intel’s late-January guidance, which flagged trouble keeping up with AI server chip demand and warned of quarterly revenue and profit coming in short of forecasts.
Heading into the session, traders are eyeing chip stocks to see if they mirror the weaker Nasdaq futures. There’s also focus on whether the market keeps factoring in mounting competition for Intel’s server CPU business as big customers explore Arm-based options.
Still, it’s a double-edged sword. At these investor conferences, any suggestion from executives about lagging product ramps, slimmer margins, or postponed customer deals can quickly morph into event risk — and for Intel, everything hinges on execution, with Nvidia and AMD continuing to lead the charge.
