Phase Space AI

Intel Corporation

INTC · investment memo

Valuation margin
demonstrated − required CAGR
-26.8%
Required CAGR
21.1%
Demonstrated
-5.7%
Terminal margin
24.6%
Exit multiple
28.1x
Company state
B
Terminal margin basis

THE MEMO DECLARES THE TERMINAL EBIT MARGIN UNIDENTIFIED and inverts the instrument, solving FOR it rather than assuming it. 24.6% is Intel's best annual operating margin of the last decade (FY2021) and is the value HELD FIXED in the memo's run-the-other-way solve that produced the 21.1% required CAGR recorded below, so it is the only terminal margin consistent with the required/demonstrated pair in this record. It is a demonstrated maximum, not an underwritten central estimate. m_EBIT,T 24.6 <= m_gross,T 40.4 SATISFIED. The screen's 9.1% 'industry median of mature profitable peers' is rejected.

Risk & exit

Four distinct questions, one field each. A price is not a thesis: the trigger below forces a re-underwrite and freezes further purchases — it is never an automatic sell.

Risk trigger
25% below the memo price
$64.68

A daily close below $64.68 triggers a mandatory re-underwrite and freezes further purchases. It is not an automatic sell unless a separate fundamental invalidation condition has been breached.

Thesis-invalidation conditions

Not stated. This name has no falsifiable invalidation conditions on file, so it cannot be risk-monitored. That is a gap in the research, not a clean bill of health — recorded rather than hidden.

Impairment case

Primary named cause: Intel Foundry never wins a material external customer. The evidence is not a projection, it is the current disclosure: external third-party foundry revenue was $293m in Q2 2026 and $467m in H1 2026, against an Intel Foundry segment operating loss of $2,089m in the quarter. If 18A and 14A do not convert — and the mention-frequency series shows Intel itself de-emphasising both by 60–84% over nine quarters (§Research 7) — then the $16.1bn of subsidised gross PP&E and the ~$105bn net PP&E support only internal demand, the transfer-price subsidy from Products to Foundry persist

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