The analyst who called Intel's 100% run just reset his forecast
6 min readI have watched a lot of winning calls fall apart the moment the stock pops.
An analyst gets it right, the ticker doubles, and suddenly the temptation is to declare victory and move on before the trade breaks. That is not what Dan Niles did with Intel on Friday.
Intel’s stock surged more than 22% on April 24, 2026, blowing past its previous record and posting one of its biggest one-day gains in over 50 years, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move came after the chipmaker reported first-quarter revenue of $13.58 billion, beating estimates of roughly $12.3 billion, and delivered optimistic guidance for the current quarter, as reported by Euronews.
Niles, the founder and portfolio manager of Niles Investment Management, had already been riding the wave. He flagged Intel as a “new idea” back on March 29, 2026, when he wrote on X that “agentic AI” positioned Intel for upside, even though the stock had already climbed more than 50% by that point.
Instead of cashing out or staying quiet, Niles went back on CNBC Friday afternoon and told viewers “there is more upside over the course of the year,” citing the structural shift toward CPUs in AI infrastructure and strong demand signals across the industry, according to CNBC’s coverage of his “Squawk on the Street” appearance.
That is the kind of call you do not make unless you believe the story has changed, not just the price. And when I dug into what Niles was saying and what Intel actually reported, I started to see why he is doubling down instead of walking away.
The forecast behind Intel’s 100% surge has now been revised.
Photo by JHVEPhoto on Getty Images
Intel’s turnaround finally showed up in the numbers
For years, Intel has been the cautionary tale of the chip industry.
The company fumbled its AI strategy, hemorrhaged market share to Nvidia and AMD, and watched its stock collapse through much of 2024 and early 2025. Analysts piled on with downgrades, and investors left for greener pastures in semiconductors that actually mattered to the AI buildout.
Related: Intel makes major fab decision amid uncertainty
Then something shifted in early 2026.
Intel’s first-quarter earnings on April 23 showed revenue up 7.2% year over year to $13.58 billion, ending a string of quarters where the company struggled to grow its top line, according to Euronews.
More importantly, Intel’s data center and AI segment posted revenue of $5.05 billion, a 22.4% increase from the prior year, driven by surging demand for central processing units that are now being recognized as critical to AI workloads.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said on the earnings call that “the CPU is reasserting itself as the essential foundation of the AI era,” and emphasized that the shift is not just company spin but feedback from actual customers, according to CNBC’s earnings recap.
That message resonated. Intel’s stock jumped more than 20% in after-hours trading following the report, then tacked on another few percentage points during Friday’s session to close the day up over 22%, its biggest one-day gain since 1987, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The rally also lifted the entire chip sector. AMD rose roughly 14%, ARM climbed about 7.5%, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF added 4%, marking its 18th consecutive day of gains, according to reporting compiled by Evrim Ağacı.
For investors who had written Intel off, this was more than a beat-and-raise quarter. It was evidence that the turnaround story might actually be real.
What Niles saw that others missed
Dan Niles has a track record of calling inflection points in tech before the consensus catches up.
He was early on Nvidia’s AI-driven rally in 2023, and his 2026 stock picks, which he published on LinkedIn and discussed on CNBC, leaned heavily into companies positioned for the next phase of AI infrastructure, including Cisco, Apple, Boeing, Nike, and Impinj.
But his Intel call was different. It was not a consensus AI darling. It was a turnaround play that required believing CPUs would matter again in a world obsessed with GPUs.
Niles wrote on X on March 29 that Intel’s prospects had improved because of “agentic AI,” a category of artificial intelligence where models take autonomous actions rather than just responding to prompts. That shift, he argued, would require more balanced compute infrastructure, including heavy CPU workloads that Intel is well positioned to serve.
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When Intel reported on April 23, that thesis played out in the numbers. Demand for Intel’s CPUs exceeded supply, a dynamic that analysts at Bank of America flagged as likely to continue into 2026, according to TheStreet’s coverage of post-earnings analyst commentary.
On April 24, Niles appeared on CNBC and said he expects “very strong CPU demand this year,” driven by the infrastructure needed to support autonomous AI applications. He also pointed out that Intel’s rally was not just hype. The company had posted real revenue growth, improved margins, and credible guidance, all of which gave him confidence that the stock had further to run.
“Friday’s Intel rally is only the beginning,” Niles told CNBC, arguing that investors were only starting to reprice Intel’s potential in the AI era.
That confidence matters when you are the guy who already nailed the first leg of the move.
What Intel’s rally means for your portfolio
If you own a broad market index fund or a tech-heavy ETF, Intel’s surge on April 24 probably gave your returns a noticeable bump.
Intel was the top performer in the S&P 500 on April 24, and the broader index climbed 0.8% to a new record close, helped in part by Intel’s weight and momentum, according to The Wall Street Journal. The chip rally also lifted Nvidia, which rose 4.3% to its first record close since October, as investors gained confidence that AI infrastructure spending remains strong across the board, according to the same report.
For individual investors, the Intel story carries a few practical takeaways that go beyond one day’s pop:
Turnaround stories can work, but timing matters. Niles caught Intel early in its 2026 run, not at the bottom in 2024. If you are looking at beaten-down names, the question is not just whether they can recover, but whether the catalyst is real and near-term.CPU demand is back, and that reshapes the AI trade. For years, the narrative has been all GPUs, all the time. Intel’s earnings and Niles’ comments suggest that the next phase of AI infrastructure will require a more balanced mix of chips, which opens opportunities beyond Nvidia and AMD.Endorsements from big players change the game. Intel received major validation in recent months, including a $5 billion equity investment from Nvidia, a $2 billion bet from SoftBank, and a 9.9% equity stake from the U.S. government through a Commerce Department deal. Those moves gave investors permission to believe again, and Niles was positioned to capture that shift.thestreet
At the same time, risks remain. Bank of America lowered its Intel price target to $40 after the January earnings report, citing margin pressure and slow yield improvements on Intel’s advanced 18A chip process, according to TheStreet. Even after Friday’s surge, not every analyst is convinced the turnaround is sustainable.
But Niles clearly is. And when the analyst who called a 100% rally comes back on air to say there is more upside ahead, it is worth paying attention to why.
What happens next for Intel?
Intel’s surge was not just about one quarter or one analyst.
It was about a broader realization that AI infrastructure is evolving beyond the GPU-centric model that dominated 2023 and 2024, and that companies like Intel, which were left for dead, might have a second act after all.
Niles told CNBC in his April 7 appearance on “Closing Bell Overtime” that he expects chip stocks to “get stronger as the year progresses,” based on continued investment in AI hardware and the infrastructure needed to support autonomous, agentic applications.
If he is right, the April 24 rally in Intel, AMD, ARM, and the broader semiconductor index is not the end of the move. It is the beginning of a rerating.
For you as an investor, that does not mean you have to chase Intel at $82 or pile into chip stocks indiscriminately. It means you should be asking whether your portfolio reflects the next phase of the AI story, not just the last one.
Because the analysts who get it right early, like Dan Niles, do not reset their forecasts for fun. They do it when the fundamentals have changed and the market has not fully caught up yet.
And if Intel’s surge is any indication, the market is starting to notice.
Related: Bank of America resets Intel stock price target after earnings
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