Key Highlights

● Third-quarter Revenue reached $16.51 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.52 topped estimates.

● The Data Center and AI unit delivered $7.32 billion in revenue.

● Fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $15.0 billion to $16.0 billion trailed the roughly $17 billion consensus.

● Intel signalled the PC slowdown is likely to last through at least the first half.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) posted a quarter that beat on profit and showed explosive data center growth, but a fourth-quarter forecast well below Wall Street's sent the stock tumbling in extended trading Thursday.

A beat that the market ignored

Intel had already had a rough regular session on October 29. The stock slid to close at $92.07, caught in the same semiconductor selling that ended a four-day winning streak for the PHLX Semiconductor Index. Then the chipmaker reported after the bell, and the real damage began.

On paper, the third quarter looked strong. Revenue came in at $16.51 billion, a robust jump from a year earlier. Adjusted Earnings Per Share of $0.52 topped the roughly $0.40 analysts had expected. And the data center and AI unit, the Business investors have been begging Intel to grow, delivered $7.32 billion in revenue, a gain that dwarfed the rest of the company's growth rate.

None of it mattered for long. Shares plunged in after-hours trading, with reports differing on the depth of the drop as prices swung through the evening. Some feeds showed Intel trading in the high $70s, while others captured it sinking into the low $70s before it pared some of the losses.

The guidance gap

The problem was the outlook. Intel guided fourth-quarter revenue to between $15.0 billion and $16.0 billion, well short of the roughly $17 billion consensus. Its adjusted earnings forecast of $0.25 a share was even further adrift from the $0.43 to $0.44 analysts had pencilled in.

The company also signalled that a slowdown in PCs is likely to last through at least the first half of next year. For a company still leaning heavily on client computing, that was a sobering message, and it overshadowed the momentum in data center chips.

It is a familiar trap in this earnings season: beat for the quarter, fall on the next one. Investors are paying for the future, and Intel's numbers for the next three months pointed the wrong way.

A brutal night for tech

Intel was not alone. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) also slid in extended trading after its own report, and together the two drove Nasdaq-100 futures lower after the bell, according to live market coverage. Dow futures, by contrast, edged up.

That capped a lopsided Thursday. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 365.13 points to 26,184.72 and the Nasdaq-100 closed at 29,402.51, dragged down by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s worst day since its 2004 IPO. Yet the Russell 2000 climbed 28.71 points to 2,859.22 as money moved toward small caps and defensive sectors.

One market analyst summed up the mood, saying that "markets are no longer rewarding companies simply for investing heavily in AI." In Intel's case, investors were not even rewarding a business that is visibly benefiting from AI demand, once the near-term forecast disappointed.

Why data center strength was not enough

The data center surge shows Intel can compete for AI-related spending. But one strong division cannot offset weaker guidance across the whole company, especially when the guide implies a sequential drop in revenue. The bar for the next quarter came in well below where analysts had set it.

What to watch

The key question is where Intel opens Friday, October 30, once after-hours price discovery gives way to the full session. Watch whether analysts revise estimates for the fourth quarter and the first half of next year in light of the PC warning. Watch, too, whether the selling spreads to other chipmakers already under pressure from the AI capex debate. Friday also brings the Employment Cost index and earnings from Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), so macro news could shape the broader tape as Intel's shareholders digest a forecast that fell well short.