5-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Intel

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, computer chip giant Intel (Nasdaq: INTC  ) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Intel's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Intel facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Santa Clara, Calif. (1968)
Market Cap	$126.5 billion
Industry	Semiconductors
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$51.6 billion
Management	CEO Paul Otellini (since 2005) CFO Stacy Smith (since 2007)
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	19.2%
Cash/Debt	$15.2 billion / $7.27 billion
Dividend Yield	3.4%
Competitors	AMD (NYSE: AMD  ) NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA  ) Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN  )

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 9,077 members who have rated Intel believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include Speachless and All-Star ndavis90210, who is ranked in the top 15% of our community.

This past summer, Speachless touched on the tailwinds working in Intel's favor:

Solid company balance sheet. Good dividend yield. The buzz is all about mobile computing and the "cloud" but the "cloud" is a large server farm that runs on [Intel] chips. As cloud storage takes off, [Intel] will have large steady buyers. If Intel ever cracks the mobile market, the stock could change from a large cap value play to a large cap growth play.

Among usually stingy tech stocks, Intel's big dividend yield of 3.4% stands out. Texas Instruments pays a much lower 2.2% yield, and AMD and NVIDIA don't pay a dividend at all.

CAPS All-Star ndavis90210 elaborates on the bargain opportunity:

Some would argue that mobile computing will cut into Intel's future growth. Let me offer 4 counterpoints:

1. Intel does have mobile offerings of its own (although they tend to be "less mobile" than others)
2. Mobile apps tend to push complex operations onto the server, increasing the demand for server processors
3. As mobile devices become more complex, they will need more powerful chips -- such as the ones Intel offers
4. Intel has a lot of resources to throw at R&D -- I am confident they will adequately adapt to any changes in the marketplace

Intel is a market leader. It has a strong balance sheet, and is generous to its shareholders in the form of dividends. Its high growth days may be over, but I believe it will still continue to grow.

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