The chipmaker's share price went nowhere for nine years. How much of the turnaround are investors already paying for?
The chipmaker's share price went nowhere for nine years.
How much of the turnaround are investors already paying for?
Shares of Intel (INTC +1.44%) trade near $101 as of this writing, up about 175% in 2026. The company's stock is also worth over five times the $18 or so it closed at in April 2025 -- its lowest close in the last decade.
But zoom out to 10 years, and the picture isn't nearly as pretty. A $10,000 investment in Intel in mid-October 2016, with all dividends reinvested, is worth around $33,700 now. The same $10,000 in the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO +0.01%), an index fund that tracks the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.02%), turned into about $42,900.
So even after nearly tripling this year, Intel stock still trails just owning the market. And I think the reasons help show how much of the turnaround investors are already paying for.
Nine years of next to nothing
Intel closed just above $37 on Oct. 12, 2016, and it finished 2025 at $36.90. In short, the share price went nowhere for over nine years, and dividends were the only return shareholders had to show for it.
The stock wasn't always behind. At the end of 2019, the $10,000 stake was worth around $17,500, ahead of the index fund's $16,100 or so. But by the end of 2022, it had dropped to about $8,500, while the same amount in the fund had doubled to about $20,100. At the stock's bottom in April 2025, the Intel stake was down to around $6,000. And when 2025 ended, it was worth about $12,300, versus about $37,300 for the fund.
So around 90% of Intel's 10-year gain has come in under 10 months.
The business went backward over that span, too. Intel's revenue rose from $59.4 billion in 2016 to a record $79.0 billion in 2021 -- and then slid to $52.9 billion in 2025, less than the company pulled in nine years before.
Averytin News Financial update.