Meridian Investment Counsel Inc. Lowers Holdings in Intel Co. (NASDAQ:INTC)

Meridian Investment Counsel Inc. lowered its position in shares of Intel Co. (NASDAQ:INTC) by 26.4% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 49,441 shares of the chip maker’s stock after selling 17,740 shares during the period. Meridian Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Intel were worth $991,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Finley Financial LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Intel in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Synergy Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Intel during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. BankPlus Trust Department acquired a new position in shares of Intel during the 4th quarter worth $28,000. Keystone Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Intel in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Quest Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Intel by 7,370.6% in the third quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 1,270 shares of the chip maker’s stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 1,253 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 64.53% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on INTC. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Intel from $25.00 to $23.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 17th. Bank of America raised Intel from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $19.00 to $25.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 13th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded Intel from a “moderate sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price target on Intel from $22.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Benchmark reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Intel in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-eight have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $27.04.

Intel Price Performance

Intel stock opened at $22.71 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 1.33. The company has a market cap of $98.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.18 and a beta of 1.02. Intel Co. has a 1 year low of $18.51 and a 1 year high of $45.41. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $22.33 and a 200 day moving average price of $22.16.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The chip maker reported ($0.02) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.14). Intel had a negative return on equity of 3.27% and a negative net margin of 35.32%. Sell-side analysts predict that Intel Co. will post -0.11 earnings per share for the current year.

About Intel

Intel Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells computing and related products and services worldwide. It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center and AI, Network and Edge, Mobileye, and Intel Foundry Services segments. The company's products portfolio comprises central processing units and chipsets, system-on-chips (SoCs), and multichip packages; mobile and desktop processors; hardware products comprising graphics processing units (GPUs), domain-specific accelerators, and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); and memory and storage, connectivity and networking, and other semiconductor products.