June 2026 · Interim Note
Interim Note: The Turnaround Position Just Had Its Best Week
Intel closed up 10.6% yesterday after President Trump confirmed Apple had agreed to use Intel's foundry to build chips domestically — the clearest single piece of evidence yet that the foundry-turnaround thesis I bought at an average cost of $37.43 is landing real customers, not just headlines. I wrote it up in full on both the News desk and, with a day's distance, in an Opinion piece about what the move does and doesn't prove about the original call.
The short version: I'm glad this happened, and I want to be precise about how much credit the original thesis actually deserves. I didn't predict Apple. I predicted that a real foundry customer win was the catalyst that would separate "Intel's turnaround worked" from "Intel's turnaround was a story." That happened this month, across several data points — Cadence, Google, Apple — not just yesterday's headline. Writing that distinction down now, while the outcome is fresh and flattering, is the same discipline the Policy page asks of the bad weeks: report what actually happened, not the version of the story that makes the original call look smarter than it was.
No position changes from this note. INTC is 4.91% of the book, well under any cap, and a single day's confirmed-news pop isn't a reason to add on strength. The next full letter will report whether June's run of foundry deal flow has actually started showing up in Intel's own reported numbers, which is the real test still ahead.