Intel Shares Fall 18% After Hours on Weak PC Quarter; Israel Factory Blast Cost About $600 Million in Revenue

Intel shares tumbled 18% in after-hours trading on Thursday, October 29, after a weak quarterly earnings report the company blamed on "near term headwinds across the PC industry." According to Reuters, revenues missed on lower PC demand and forward guidance also disappointed; as one fund manager put it, "as Google learned today, earnings matter," after Alphabet shares dropped 13% in the regular session.

Israel factory shut for two weeks

Intel also said a factory explosion in Israel shut the plant down for about two weeks and would cost it roughly $600 million in lost revenue over two quarters. No further details of the explosion were given in the report, but the disruption, combined with weak PC demand, was the immediate trigger for the after-hours sell-off.

Spillover across chip stocks

The sell-off spread quickly: PC makers HP and Dell sank 8% and 6.8% after hours, while AMD dropped 4% and Broadcom fell 2%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) had already dropped 1.4% during the regular session on Alphabet's earnings report, then sold off further after the close; it has declined 13% since its recent October high and is off 21% from its all-time high in June. Some analysts noted that Intel's problems are concentrated in the PC sector, an area that does not draw the same scrutiny as the AI buildout, and do not necessarily mean big problems for other chipmakers more prominent in AI — but in thin post-market trading, investors chose to sell first and ask questions later.