Are Intel Investors Bracing for Bad Earnings?

Several things are taking place simultaneously. There has been stronger short selling activity in Intel, and some investors seem to believe that short sellers have some additional insight that the buy-and-hold crowd does not have. Intel’s chart is currently bad as well. Revenue trends are down from last year.

Recently, DRAM data has not been very supportive of a strong PC market. Canaccord Genuity recently gave a different take, one based on a positive view of Intel’s Skylake processors into the launch of Windows 10.

As far as the chart is concerned, Intel failed its rally at $34.50 at the end of May, and shares have slipped close to $31.50 since. The problem is that $34.00 to $34.50 had been hard resistance earlier this year, and $34.75 to $35.25 had been support at the end of 2014 and start of 2015. This simply means there is a lot of natural selling pressure anywhere close to $34.00 and higher. Now Intel’s chart shows the 50-day moving average of $32.45 and a 200-day moving average up at $33.46.

ALSO READ: 6 Analyst Stocks With 50% to 100% Upside Calls

Wall Street analysts have been consistent with their estimate of $0.52 in earnings per share in recent weeks. Still, that is down from $0.55 per share posted a year ago. This trend for Intel’s annual earnings outlook offers a different view than the quarterly estimate. Thomson Reuters has a consensus estimate of $2.15 in earnings per share for fiscal 2015. The problem is that the annual estimate was $2.16 just a week ago, and it was $2.17 a month ago. That might not be much of a target change, but a similar expected earnings trend for 2016 by analysts has also been seen.

Another negative is the layoffs that are taking place. This effort was said by The Oregonian to be targeting Intel’s administrative and R&D overhead.

So, are things stacking up against Intel this summer? When 24/7 Wall St. gave its view of a 19,142 Dow peak in 2015, Intel’s expected gain was a mere 0.8% for 2015. After all, a gain of 44% that had been seen in 2014 might have taken out a lot of the good news being priced in. Also back then, the consensus analyst price target was $35.65 — and now it is $34.64.

Intel shares were looking for direction on Tuesday morning, with shares up fractional in late morning at $31.56. Intel’s 52-week range is $29.31 to $37.90.

ALSO READ: 4 Merrill Lynch High Quality and Dividend Yield Stocks to Buy Now

There is at least some good news in the case of Intel, even if investors are worried. Its shares are cheap for value investors at about 13 to 14 times earnings. Intel also has a 3.1% or so dividend yield, quite high for a technology stock.