INSTANT VIEW: Intel results beat expectations, shares up

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) posted a 12 percent increase in third-quarter profit as gross margins beat expectations, sending its shares up 8 percent on Tuesday.

While the world's largest chip maker guided lower Wall Street's expectations for revenue in the current quarter, analysts said the move was not as bad as some had feared.

COMMENTARY

SEAN CONNER, SENIOR EQUITY ANALYST, FIRST AMERICAN FUNDS IN

MINNEAPOLIS

"The bottom line is that they did better than expected. Gross margins came in better than people were expecting, for both this quarter and in its outlook for the fourth quarter. For me, this is a relief rally more than anything else."

"Couple of things I'm looking for on the call: they lowered capital expenditure for 2008, the key is what the capex will be for 2009, since it'll affect gross margins. I'm looking for a 2009 outlook."

"As for how Intel shares will perform going forward, tell me how the market will do and I'll tell you how Intel will do. All things being equal, it should outperform the market, but who can tell with this crazy market these days."

ROB BURLESON, ANALYST, CANACCORD ADAMS

"While there will be estimate revisions in this earnings season, it seems they won't be disastrous. Intel's number cut (on fourth quarter revenue) was not that bad. It's definitely a shortfall. The consensus had been for $10.8 billion and now they are guiding more to like $10.5 billion."

MIKE HOLLAND, FUND MANAGER, HOLLAND & CO, WHICH OVERSEES

ASSETS IN EXCESS OF $4 BILLION, INCLUDING INTEL, IBM, APPLE

"They look pretty healthy to me and a little bit of a positive surprise."

"More important to me to some extent is gross margin, which I think people were looking for to come in at 57 percent, came in at 59 percent."

"In this environment, the stock was trading down today basically reflecting the fact that the world is going to be slower in the future. These are numbers that if you have to be somewhere with a slower future, this may not be a bad place to be."

DAVID WU, ANALYST, GLOBAL CROWN CAPITAL

"The revenue guidance was in line, which is better than feared and in this day and age that is considered good. The only thing we wanted to know was the revenue guidance and it was line with expectations and a little better than the worst case assumption. Net net it was a good guidance considering what people expected."

FRED HICKEY, EDITOR, HIGH-TECH STRATEGIST NEWSLETTER

"It's not quite as bad as we expected. It's a bit of a guide down on the revenue, but the stock is up because it isn't quite as bad as people thought."

"Everybody is going to guide down as Intel has done, but everybody's stock is already down. Now we need to see whether they are going to rally here. Intel is important because it is the first and it is big. How it trades tomorrow will give us some idea of what is going to happen with the rest of the earnings period."

"The semiconductor companies are the back-end-of-the-food-chain kind of companies. We know that computer sales have gotten hit hard. It's a question of which companies are going to guide down earlier before they puke."

EDWIN MOK, ANALYST, NEEDHAM & CO IN SAN FRANCISCO

"It turns out the guidance, while it is below consensus, it's not substantially below consensus, which might explain why the stock was trading up in after-hours trading."

CODY ACREE, ANALYST, STIFEL, NICOLAUS & CO IN DALLAS

"It's better than feared and that's really all that Intel needed, given how far the stock had pulled back."

"The demand is a matter of the economic climate, so we're not seeing any issues with Intel's products because of Intel issues, we're seeing that the economy as a whole is putting pressure on consumers' spending."

HANS MOSESMANN, ANALYST, RAYMOND JAMES IN NEW YORK

"They're executing and you've got to hand it to them."

"The company's executing very well, and the signal regarding the rest of the industry is there does seem to be slowdown but it's not catastrophic."

(Reporting by Sue Zeidler and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Ryan Vlastelica in New York, Daisuke Wakabayashi in Seattle and Jim Finkle in Boston; compiled by Tiffany Wu)