Intel hits lowest levels in five years as semiconductors plunge on recession, rate fears
Alexander Koerner

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) shares hit their lowest levels in more than five years on Monday, while the broader semiconductor industry sold off sharply on worries over a global recession and a more aggressive Federal Reserve.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel (INTC) fell more than 4% to close at $33.84, even as the company is set to give details about its upcoming Meteor Lake processors at the Hot Chips 2022 conference.
Pat Gelsinger, Chief Executive of Intel (INTC), spoke at the conference and gave updates on its Meteor Lake processors, along with the idea of chiplets, putting multiple chips on a single processor.
Since the start of the year, Intel (INTC) has lost more than 36% of its value and has declined a similar amount over the past 12 months.
Several of Intel's (INTC) competitors, including Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL), fell more than 3% on Monday - led by a 4.5% decline in Nvidia - as investors awaited second-quarter results from Nvidia (NVDA) and Marvell (MRVL) later in the week.
Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore, who has an equal weight rating on both companies, said the duo could see pockets of weakness -- gaming for Nvidia and storage and enterprise for Marvell -- but the cloud and data centers are key.
The analyst Moore noted that while Nvidia's (NVDA) recent pre-announcement showed weakness in the data center, it's likely this was an "aberration" and the long-term trajectory is still there. 
"While numbers have materially less downside, the stock has simultaneously appreciated," Moore wrote in a note to clients. "We are constructive, but a weakening semiconductor market could give a better entry point; we would leave room to add to positions on weakness and would remain with an [equal weight] view."
Nvidia (NVDA) is slated to report quarterly results on August 24.
For Marvell (MRVL), which reports on August 25, Moore said it's likely there will be a "mixed" outlook, citing a few headwinds.
"We expect generally good numbers here, given lead times that have come down at the margin but are still long," the analyst explained, adding that areas to watch include storage, enterprise networking and potentially some inventory reduction in the cloud. 
Chip equipment makers continued to be in the spotlight, as KLA Corp. (KLAC), Lam Research (LRCX) and ASML Holding (ASML) each fell at least 3% on Monday, led by a 4.5% decline in ASML.
Last week, China criticized the U.S. CHIPS & Science Act, saying the new law violates fair market principles and goes after the country's efforts to build its own semiconductor industry.
The Biden administration is looking into whether it should restrict sales from semiconductor equipment makers such as ASML Holding (ASML) and others to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers.
Several other chipmakers saw sharp declines on Monday, including Qualcomm (QCOM), Texas Instruments (TXN), Broadcom (AVGO) and Micron Technology (MU), all of which fell 3% or more.
Last week, investment firm Citi maintained its neutral ratings on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel (INTC) after the bank pointed to continued declines in notebook shipments, raising the risk for more downside for both companies.