New York, Feb 19, 2026, 18:19 (ET) — After-hours
- Intel slipped roughly 2% during Thursday’s session. After hours, the stock barely budged.
- A three-session slide has drawn attention once again to valuations tied to AI and the ongoing data-center rivalry.
- Investors have their eyes on U.S. inflation data due Friday, along with Intel’s CFO, who’s set to speak at a Morgan Stanley conference March 4.
Shares of Intel Corp slid 1.9% Thursday, ending the session at $44.62 after dipping as low as $43.92. The stock hovered close to that mark in after-hours trade following the 4 p.m. close on U.S. exchanges.
This pullback is notable, with Intel caught between two key investor questions: the staying power of the AI boom and whether spending eventually benefits more than just the top players. Bullish Intel watchers are focused on regaining leverage in PC pricing and squeezing more value from the data-center business.
Skeptics see it differently. Fresh AI hardware announcements won’t slow down, and competitors in the data center space keep piling up—a headache for any firm attempting a confidence reboot, especially while footing the bill for an expensive manufacturing revamp.
Broad market sentiment offered little support. Wall Street closed in the red, with Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments, pointing out that “the market is trying to grapple with what business lines are under threat in a material way from AI.” Investors are eyeing the Personal Consumption Expenditures report—the Fed’s favored inflation measure—set for release Friday. Reuters
Intel shares fell again, stretching their three-day skid to about 4.5%. The stock now sits roughly 18% off the 52-week peak of $54.60 set back on Jan. 22, according to recent closing prices.
Nvidia, meanwhile, has been steadily expanding into CPUs—a space where Intel still dominates in data centers. This week, Nvidia announced a multiyear agreement to deliver millions of AI chips to Meta Platforms, along with its Grace and the upcoming Vera processors, both direct rivals to Intel and AMD. “Meta has already had a chance to get on Vera and run some of those workloads. And the results look very promising,” Ian Buck, Nvidia’s general manager for hyperscale and high-performance computing, said. Reuters
The CPU piece is key here: data-center customers aren’t just chasing performance, but paying close attention to power consumption and overall system costs. Arm-based chips, which borrow architecture from smartphones, are marketed as a solution to bring down energy bills across sprawling server farms—no small line item for major cloud providers.
Still, the trade can reverse in a hurry. “Valuations for anything with AI exposure are getting a bit rich,” said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede. Reuters
Intel’s narrative continues to hinge on its ability to deliver. Just last month, it acknowledged having trouble meeting demand for server chips powering AI data centers, and its quarterly revenue and profit outlook came in short of what the market was expecting.
Intel’s CFO David Zinsner is set for a fireside chat about the company’s business and strategy at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on March 4. Investors will be watching for updates on server demand, factory performance, and any signals on how Intel plans to protect its data center turf as competition heats up.
