INTEL STOCK LOSES 29%, WORST SINGLE DAY SINCE 1974

Intel posted $16.5 billion in third quarter revenue and beat estimates. Then management talked about the fourth quarter. Guidance landed at $15 billion to $16 billion against the roughly $17 billion Wall Street expected, with adjusted earnings of 25 cents versus the 43 cents penciled in. The stock closed Friday down about 28.6% at $65.76, its worst single day since July 1974. The problem is PCs. Memory prices are climbing, laptops cost more, buyers are sitting it out, and Intel expects PC revenue to fall roughly 20% from Q3 to Q4 with no real recovery until memory supply and pricing calm down. Data center and AI revenue grew nearly 80% year over year and it bought the stock absolutely nothing. Part of the damage is not a spreadsheet problem. An October 14 explosion during a gas transfer at Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat, Israel killed two employees, seriously injured another, and halted production for about two weeks. CFO David Zinsner pegged the financial hit at about $300 million in Q4 revenue and two points of gross margin, roughly $600 million across two quarters. Two workers died on a shift, and the number getting the most airtime this week is the margin line. Analysts bailed fast. Bank of America cut to Neutral and dropped its target from $145 to $100, Roth went from $120 to $70, Seaport downgraded too. Intel was up about 150% on the year before Thursday.

Why you should give a shit: Intel's comeback now depends on memory prices it does not set and PC buyers who are not buying, and since Washington owns a chunk, about $12 billion of Friday's bath was technically yours.