Intel Dumps It’s Arm Shares; Here Come The Conjectures

Intel Suddenly DisArmed

Today began with a surprise, Intel dumped 1,176,470 shares in ARM Holdings Plc on Tuesday with little to no fanfare.  That is an interesting move which is guaranteed to cause speculations across the intertubes; though it had little effect on it’s stock price.  When Arm went public almost a year ago Intel, Apple, NVIDIA and Samsung all grabbed significant volumes of the stock.  Ostensibly this was to demonstrate their faith in Arm and their plans to work closely in the future; in NVIDIA’s case it may have also been to show there was no hard feelings over their failed attempt to purchase Arm outright.  The fact that Arm stock has increased in value by over 90% since they went public certainly didn’t upset them either.

Well, Intel is out after selling off their shares.  The Register calculates they made around $147 million off of the sale, a number that would change many lives but for Intel is pocket change.  Intel’s last quarterly earnings were described as disappointing because they brought in a mere $12.8 billion, after all.  Looking at those numbers unlikely the sell off was to raise capital, though there will be those who believe that was the motivation.  It could have been to balance their investment portfolio, though dumping a stock that almost doubled in value over the course of 10 months seems unwise.  There is the possibility that Intel knows something most people don’t, which again is rather unlikely as Arm is not going anywhere.

Is Intel sending a message?  Do they have a plan to release a product to compete directly with Arm?  Do they simply want to distract the market from Raptor Lake by giving investors something else to think about?  Perhaps you have another idea of their motivations?