---
title: "Jim Cramer's CNBC club will sell Intel and buy AMD as Intel guides $15-16 billion, below $17 billion expected"
description: "The call came a day after Mercury Research put Intel's desktop CPU share at 70.1%, a gain the research firm says may only be Intel refilling supply in a shrinking PC market. The money is moving to the server CPUs that run AI agents, and AMD is guided to outsell Intel this quarter for the first time."
publisher: "The Inference"
section: "Chips"
published: 2026-11-15T16:11:33.076Z
modified: 2026-11-15T16:11:33.076Z
canonical: https://theinference.org/article/jim-cramer-s-cnbc-club-will-sell-intel-and-buy-amd-as-intel-guides-15-16-billion-below-17-billion-expected
language: en
keywords: "Intel, AMD, Semiconductors, Earnings, Data Center"
---

# Jim Cramer's CNBC club will sell Intel and buy AMD as Intel guides $15-16 billion, below $17 billion expected

> The call came a day after Mercury Research put Intel's desktop CPU share at 70.1%, a gain the research firm says may only be Intel refilling supply in a shrinking PC market. The money is moving to the server CPUs that run AI agents, and AMD is guided to outsell Intel this quarter for the first time.

Two [Intel](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/intel) numbers landed a day apart, and they point opposite ways. On November 13, Mercury Research, the firm whose quarterly tables track chip shipments, showed Intel taking five points of desktop CPU share back from [AMD](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/amd) [2]. On November 14, Jim Cramer's [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/29/intel-intc-q3-earnings-report-2026-.html) Investing Club, the service built around his charitable trust's portfolio, [said it will sell its Intel holding and buy AMD](https://www.cnbc.com/investingclub/2026/11/14/nvidias-leadership-crisis-rattles-wall-street-how-were-adjusting.html) [1]. The club has the better read: the share gain shows Intel shipping into a market that shrank, not buyers choosing Intel.

## Intel shipped more desktop chips because laptop demand let it

Mercury said it is "difficult to know the driver of this for sure," and speculated that weak laptop demand let Intel steer product into a desktop market it had under-supplied earlier in the year [2]. Both vendors saw mobile chip shipments fall more than 10% in the same quarter [2]. [A two-company share table](https://shattered.io/amd-slips-5-points-29-9-percent-desktop-cpu-shipments-intel-supply-mercury/) always sums to 100, so when the market is shrinking, the percentages show who shipped into the decline [3].

## Intel's guidance contradicts its share table

Intel's own forecast settles what the share table cannot. The company [guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15–16 billion](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/29/intel-intc-q3-earnings-report-2026-.html), below the $17 billion analysts expected, and finance chief [David Zinsner](https://theinference.org/markets/people/david-zinsner) said the PC slowdown will run "at least through the first half of next year" [4].

An explosion at the Kiryat Gat fabrication plant in Israel adds about $600 million of lost sales across two quarters, including 10-nanometer server chips [4][5]. The cause runs back to AI: hyperscalers, the giant cloud operators building data centers, have bought up the memory supply, and PC buyers are waiting out the prices [5], the wave [we tracked](https://theinference.org/article/hewlett-packard-enterprise-fell-6-42-after-intel-s-memory-warning-with-11-8-billion-of-inventory) when Intel's memory warning hit [Hewlett Packard Enterprise](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/hewlett-packard-enterprise). The stock is down 42% in a month [5].

## The trade follows the CPUs that run AI agents

The club's stated reason is flexibility. AMD's chip designs let it move capacity between PC and server processors, and data centers need CPUs to run AI agents [1]. That split already shows inside Intel's own quarter: [client computing shrank while data center revenue rose 78%](https://theinference.org/article/intel-beats-and-guides-december-down-on-memory-costs-and-the-stock-falls-more-than-20-after-hours) [4]. Software that runs AI agents, such as [OpenAI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/openai)'s Dots, leans on CPUs to orchestrate work in the cloud [4].

![An AMD EPYC 9754 server processor mounted in a dual-socket server board beside DDR5 memory modules](https://storage.googleapis.com/theinference-public/img/2cfc2ac4e04046b7.png)

*An AMD EPYC 9754 server processor in a dual-socket server board. The club's trade leans on AMD's server CPUs, where data center growth is guided to carry the quarter. (极客湾Geekerwan)*

AMD has [guided its current quarter to about $17 billion](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/amd-expects-to-outsell-intel-in-q4-for-the-first-time-in-history/ar-AA2gK4rX), which would put it ahead of Intel for the first time [6]. Even the bull case published the same day, [a Seeking Alpha upgrade on the investment research site](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4968345-intel-wall-street-may-be-underestimating-its-comeback-nvidia-opportunity), rests on that data center growth and an [Nvidia](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nvidia) partnership whose products and revenue "remain ahead," not on the desktop table [7].

*Chart: **AMD's guided fourth quarter would pass Intel's revenue for the first time** Line chart of Intel and AMD quarterly revenue from Q4 2024 through Q4 2026, with AMD's guided fourth quarter crossing above Intel's guided range for the first time.*

*Reported quarterly revenue from SEC filings through Q3 2026; Q4 2026 points are each company's guidance (Intel $15–16 billion, AMD about $17 billion plus or minus 3%) [8][9][6][4]*

The next Mercury release is the test the share table sets for itself: share that stays elevated confirms the supply story, and a quick reversal means the gain was a one-off in shipment timing [3]. Intel's foundry build-out will be funded by data center chips, not desktop share, and the club's swap is a bet that more of that money goes to AMD.

## Takeaway

Intel's desktop share gain came from shipping into a shrinking PC market, not from buyers choosing its chips, and AMD's guidance now has it outselling Intel for the first time.

## Sources

1. [CNBC Investing Club, "Nvidia's leadership crisis rattles the AI trade. Here's how we're adjusting our portfolio," 14 November 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/investingclub/2026/11/14/nvidias-leadership-crisis-rattles-wall-street-how-were-adjusting.html)
2. [PC Gamer, "Intel takes unexpected bite out of AMD's desktop CPU market share," 13 November 2026](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/intel-takes-massive-chunk-out-of-amds-desktop-cpu-market-share-in-unexpected-turnaround-may-be-due-to-the-red-teams-dominance-in-gaming-chips-weirdly/)
3. [shattered.io, "AMD Slips 5 Points to 29.9% in Desktop CPU Shipments," 15 November 2026](https://shattered.io/amd-slips-5-points-29-9-percent-desktop-cpu-shipments-intel-supply-mercury/)
4. [CNBC, "Intel stock plunges 21% as chipmaker blames PC slowdown for weak guidance," 29 October 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/29/intel-intc-q3-earnings-report-2026-.html)
5. [Yahoo Finance, "Why Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has 22 meetings a day, and what you can learn from it," 14 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/why-intel-ceo-lip-bu-tan-has-22-meetings-a-day--and-what-you-can-learn-from-it-210301452.html)
6. [Tom's Hardware (via MSN), "AMD expects to outsell Intel in Q4 for the first time in history," 4 November 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/amd-expects-to-outsell-intel-in-q4-for-the-first-time-in-history/ar-AA2gK4rX)
7. [Seeking Alpha, "Intel: Wall Street May Be Underestimating Its Comeback And Nvidia Opportunity (Upgrade)," 14 November 2026](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4968345-intel-wall-street-may-be-underestimating-its-comeback-nvidia-opportunity)
8. [Intel, quarterly revenue from its SEC filings, retrieved 15 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000050863)
9. [AMD, quarterly revenue from its SEC filings, retrieved 15 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000002488)


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Jim Cramer's CNBC club will sell Intel and buy AMD as Intel guides $15-16 billion, below $17 billion expected — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/jim-cramer-s-cnbc-club-will-sell-intel-and-buy-amd-as-intel-guides-15-16-billion-below-17-billion-expected