Earnings season is getting into full swing and semiconductor giant Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) will be in line to tell investors just how well it was able to cope with the current recession tomorrow.The chip maker is expected to show a sizable drop in earnings, with an expected 2 cents a share for the quarter. This compares with 25 cents a share that it was able to report for its first quarter last year.
The current recession has led to a hefty drop in demand for the company, with global semiconductor sales dropping by 30% in February on a year over year basis.
While there is little doubt on Wall Street regarding the tough times the company is dealing with, analysts are going to be anxious to get any insight possible into whether or not the market is stabilizing a bit. In February, the company did ease investor's minds by saying that some predictability was returning to their demand.
Partly due to this, the company's stock has been performing very strongly over the past month.
While the past year has been tough for all semiconductor company's, Intel has been able to set itself up for a pretty nice bounce in earnings one the economy starts to rebound. Its was able to extend its dominance over the microprocessor market in 2008 to 80.%, up from 78.9% during 2007, so in that regard, the company's competitiveness has been doing well over the past year.
Intel's quarterly earnings will be watched closely by Wall Street, as investors attempt to gage how the rest of the tech giants will be doing this quarter.
What are your predictions for the company? Should we expect strong numbers tomorrow, or a disappointing indicator of what lies to come for the tech sector this earnings season.
Let's close by taking a look at a recent 3 month chart to see just how well the stock has rebounded:
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