Jim Cramer Discussed These 10 Stocks & Commented On Gold Price

8. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holdings: 81

Chip giant Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s shares are up by 140% over the past year and by 21% year-to-date. Like Nike, the firm is also in the midst of a dramatic turnaround. Headed by veteran semiconductor industry executive Lip-Bu Tan, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is busy streamlining its chip manufacturing technologies and carving out a place for itself in the global semiconductor fabrication market. Following its earnings report last week, several analysts have been busy sharing their thoughts on the firm. For instance, JPMorgan bumped the share price target to $35 from $30 and kept an Underweight rating on the shares. The investment bank pointed out that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) was experiencing tailwinds from growing server CPU demand and could better target the growth later in the year by shifting semiconductor wafers from its consumer business to its data center business. Similarly, Stifel raised the share price target to $42 from $35 and kept a Hold rating. The financial firm pointed out that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) could benefit from improving process yields and pricing, among other factors. Deutsche Bank also raised the share price target. It increased it to $45 from $35 and maintained a Hold rating and pointed out that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s revenue beat expectations. Cramer discussed the firm’s foundry business, its CEO, and his opinion about the stock price:

“Right well a lot of these analysts were well behind the curve about what Lip-Bu was willing to do. And talk about Lip-Bu, it’s very clear, initially he came in to fix the balance sheet. Even a year ago we felt that maybe this company was a goner. He’s been at it and in ten months he’s fixed the balance sheet. And second he wanted to be able to improve the yield, how many chips come out that are good. He was not able to do that. The hostility toward him, on the conference call, was really, I felt, ill-advised. I think, I want to take the other side of the trade here. Let the stock come in. But Lip-Bu has got customers that people don’t realize. I think he actually has Apple lined up for his next foundry. He cannot speak about customers’ names, but I think Apple has it. I also think that the yield will be fixed, that was not his focus. This man understands semiconductors better than anyone other than Morris Chang, and perhaps, Jensen Huang. I say that because I saw an interview that Jensen Huang did where he basically just said, look, this man is the man who understands things. So I don’t buy the antipathy. It seemed very wrong headed. I think that Lip-Bu is going to turn this company around, again let it go down.

“Oh I think this thing could go up, I think it could go up 25 points by the time they have this analyst day that they are talking about. They didn’t give you a date. I think people forget that a well run Intel is a great company. It was so poorly run under the previous CEO that it’s really hard to judge how good they can be. Did Lip-Bu temper expectations enough? He was so busy running the darn company I don’t think he was playing the street game. My friend Ben Reitzes he has a really good report about how this company is really ready to kick butt. And I totally agree with that.”