Intel shares rose more than 4 percent in premarket trading on Oct. 19, helped by JPMorgan's upgrade of its investment rating.

According to blockchain media outlet Decrypt, JPMorgan raised its rating on Intel to neutral from underweight. Intel shares were up 4.16 percent at $93.59 in premarket trading.

The upgrade withdraws a negative view it has kept since November 2022. In a report dated Oct. 18, analyst Harlan Sur (할런 서) said Intel shares had fallen about 36 percent from June highs, reducing the downside risk implied by the existing $85 target price. The target price was maintained, but the market paid more attention to signs of improved execution after the start of the Lip-Bu Tan (립부 탄) era.

JPMorgan drew a line against viewing Intel's rebound as a short-lived development. Sur said a full turnaround would take years, but the management had made a solid start and confidence in its execution capability was increasing.

The basis for the change in assessment came from both products and manufacturing. JPMorgan said Intel's execution and competitiveness in PC and data center chips improved after Tan became chief executive. It also saw progress in moving advanced chip designs into mass production. It said yields and manufacturability improved, and alignment between chip design requirements and foundry processes had increased. It also mentioned progress in packaging technology that bundles multiple chips into a single package.

On the demand side, artificial intelligence was presented as a variable. JPMorgan said demand was rising for central processing units used in agentic AI systems that perform multiple stages of work on their own. It said performance forecasts could be revised up if this coincides with constraints in advanced chip supply. JPMorgan's 2028 earnings-per-share estimate was presented at about 15 percent above the Wall Street consensus.

It also made clear the upgrade does not immediately mean a recovery in market share. JPMorgan expected Intel to keep losing processor market share over the next few quarters. It saw greater weakness in the server CPU market. Intel's server x86 CPU revenue share was estimated to have fallen to 53 percent from 77 percent in November 2022. Its PC CPU market share was also tallied as dropping to 68 percent from 81 percent.

The stock's performance also lagged rivals. Intel fell about 12.6 percent over the past 3 trading days to close at $89.85 on Oct. 17. The premarket rise increased the likelihood of breaking the downtrend, but JPMorgan said Intel shares had trailed major semiconductor rivals such as AMD and Broadcom by a wide margin. Even so, the stock's gain this year, based on the Oct. 17 close, reached about 143 percent.

The foundry business remains a challenge. JPMorgan said Intel's foundry business for external customers needs to show much stronger growth. Intel's external foundry revenue in the first half of 2026 was $467 million. The figure includes third-party chip production and assembly and test services, and an annualised simple calculation puts it at about $934 million. JPMorgan compared that with TSMC's annualised first-half revenue of about $150 billion, but added that the TSMC figure is based on the company's total revenue, so it is not a direct comparison of the same business segment.

Earnings are also approaching. Intel is scheduled to report 2026 third-quarter results after the market closes on Oct. 29. The market is expected to check whether improved execution under Tan has translated into actual profitability and defence of market share.

Separately, Intel tokenised stock INTCB traded at $93.48, up 4.54 percent over 24 hours, based on CoinMarketCap. This product trades separately from Intel common shares listed on Nasdaq, and the 24-hour change calculation period also differs from stock premarket trading.