Intel Stock Starts Countdown to Launch

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Intel (INTC) has been trailing the semiconductor industry for the past year, experiencing hard times even in this good market.

Revenue and earnings haven't been disappointing but have been in line with analysts' expectations. They feel that the stock price is depressed and if they are right, investors coming in at this level could see an annual total return in the 19%-to-21% range over the next five years.

Let's look at how depressed the stock really is.

During the past year while the stock was down 21% the market as measured by the Value Line Arithmetic Index was up a solid 15% as this graph provided by Barchart shows:

Fundamental factors: Intel is huge with a market cap of $105 billion. The price-to-earnings ratio is a reasonable 9.88 and the dividend yield of 4.24% is about 45% of projected earnings. This year revenue is expected to be up 1.40% and up again next year by 4.50%.

Earnings are estimated to be down 8.90% this year due to heavy research and development expenses but up again by 8.20% next year, possibly continuing to improve for the next five years at an annual rate of 12.33%. The financial strength is A++ and TheStreet considers this a B- stock.

Technical factors: Due to the downward momentum the stock gets a 67% technical sell indicator from Barchart but recently the Trend Spotter has issued a hold signal.

The stock is trading above its 20- and 50-day moving averages but still below its 100-day moving average. The price was down 3.30% for the month and 20.40% for the year. The relative strength index was a neutral 49.89 and Barchart computes a technical support level at 20.97.

The stock recently traded at 21.15 slightly above its 50-day moving average of 21.05.

Investor sentiment: Sentiment is getting stronger with both the professional and individual investor. Thirty-seven Wall Street brokerage firms have assigned 49 analysts to predict the numbers and they gave six strong buy, 10 buy, 25 hold, seven under perform and just one sell recommendation to clients.

1 2 Next › Last »