The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is pointing higher into Friday’s open, with futures fractionally higher as traders digest a bevy of data. Intel reported a blockbuster print, sending its stock to dot-com-era levels, while Mideast tensions appear to be easing once again on hopes of resumed talks between the U.S. and Iran. After a whipsaw week, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is poised for a flat performance over the past five trading sessions alongside gains of about 4% YTD.
Despite the index’s push toward record highs, anxiety hasn’t left the building. The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s so-called “fear gauge,” remained stubbornly elevated near 20, even as stocks climbed, an unusual divergence that happens only about 20% of the time. Part of that stickiness reflects genuine hedging against macro risks like the Iran conflict and crude oil volatility. But there’s a separate story underneath: traders are aggressively buying upside calls in semiconductor and tech names driving the rally, inflating options premiums across the board. Fear and greed, it turns out, aren’t always opposites after all.
Intel’s Best Quarter in Years
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC | INTC Price Prediction) is the story of the tape. Shares are indicated up 27% to 28% in the premarket after Q1 FY2026 delivered non-GAAP EPS of $0.29 against a $0.01 consensus, with revenue of $13.58 billion, up 7% year over year. Data Center & AI grew 22% to $5.05 billion, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan flagged “the next wave of AI” moving toward inference and agentic workloads that lean harder on CPUs. The stock closed at $67 and traded at $80 an hour after filing, now up 224% over the past year. Perhaps the biggest tailwind has been Intel revisiting its dot-com-era share price level.
Optical AI and Sector Breadth
Megacaps are mixed. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is up +1% even as it offers voluntary buyouts to roughly 8,750 U.S. employees, while Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) sits +1% and is hovering at fresh all-time high levels.
Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) is cutting roughly 8,000 jobs, a reminder that AI capex is being funded partly by headcount discipline. Nike (NYSE: NKE) may not be a tech stock, but the company is making cuts to its workforce in the IT department.
MaxLinear (NASDAQ:MXL) is up by a double-digit percentage after posting 43% revenue growth and guiding Q2 to $160 million to $170 million, well above the Street. The infrastructure segment surged 136% YoY on optical interconnects ramping into hyperscale AI build-outs. It is the same ecosystem feeding NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), whose DGX Rubin NVL8 systems will use Intel’s Xeon 6 as host CPU.
Oil Cools, Volatility Eases
WTI crude has pulled back to $91, down 10% on the week from the $115 April 7 spike, as diplomatic signals improve. The VIX sits near 19, down 28% from a month ago. The 10Y-2Y spread holds at 0.51%, a green light on recession risk for now.
What to Watch Into the Close
The tell today is breadth. If the S&P’s gain is carried solely by Intel and a handful of semis, it is vulnerable to profit-taking. Sustained strength in the Nasdaq-100 alongside the Russell 2000, which closed at $276, would confirm risk appetite is broad. Watch crude’s follow-through on any Iran headlines, and whether INTC can hold the gap after the open.
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