Who owns Intel, and are the big owners buying or selling?
We counted who owns Intel, using official filings. Big investment firms hold about 78% of the shares, the U.S. Government about 9%, and company leaders almost none. Last quarter the big firms were buying more than they sold, and Intel's chief executive bought about $10 million of shares with his own money. Pension funds, as a group, trimmed a little. In the last seven days, buying and selling were balanced, with early signs of buying returning.
Counted from official filings (10-Q share count of 5,044,000,000 shares). The everyday-investor figure is what is left after the counted groups — an estimate, labelled as one in the full report.
Ownership: Intel (INTC) — full report
Who owns Intel, who is doing what, and whether money is accumulating or offloading. As of 28 October 2026. Sources: SEC EDGAR (DEF 14A proxy, Form 4), Nasdaq 13F aggregation (Q2 2026 cycle), Nasdaq official short interest and daily price history. Retail is an estimated residual everywhere it appears — there is no direct retail feed.
I. The split — reconciled to the share count
Denominator: 5,044,000,000 shares — Intel Form 10-Q Q2 2026 cover, shares outstanding as of Jul 17, 2026 (primary). Nasdaq publishes 5,255,000,000 — both denominators are shown wherever percentages appear; the gap resolves with the Q3 2026 10-Q (expected ~Nov 6, 2026). The four classes sum to the denominator (99.99%, rounding).
| Class | Shares | % of 10-Q count |
|---|---|---|
| Institutional (13F filers, 3,818 holders) | 3,942,665,672 | 78.2% |
| U.S. Government (Dept. of Commerce) | 433,323,000 | 8.6% |
| Retail & other — estimated residual | 665,261,334 | 13.2% |
| Founders & insiders (officers + directors, 15 persons) | 2,749,994 | 0.05% |
- Founders & insiders (primary, DEF 14A filed Mar 23, 2026; beneficial ownership as of Mar 20, 2026): Intel's founders (Noyce / Moore / Grove) are historical — no founder or founder-family stake remains on the register. Largest insider: CEO Lip-Bu Tan, 1,226,377 shares (16,471 direct + 1,209,906 indirect). CFO David Zinsner 364,918; Foundry chief Naga Chandrasekaran 207,517. The government stake includes 149,438,785 shares held in escrow under the Secure Enclave Agreement; warrants excluded.
- Institutional (secondary — aggregated 13F filings, Q2 2026 positions mostly dated Jun 30, 2026): 78.2% of the 10-Q count, 75.0% of Nasdaq's count. Strategic stakes inside the institutional total: NVIDIA 214,776,632 shares and SoftBank 86,956,522, both unchanged in Q2 2026.
- Vanguard caveat (flagged, not adjusted): Vanguard appears as a parent line dated Dec 31, 2025 (404,522,308 sh) alongside two Jun 30, 2026 sub-adviser lines (285,230,183 + 89,395,975). If the parent line double-counts the sub-adviser lines, institutional falls to ~3,538M shares (~70.1%) and the retail residual rises to ~21%. Unresolved presentation issue in the aggregator data.
- Correction to an earlier carried figure: the ~64.5% institutional figure used in earlier research traces to MarketBeat's published 64.53% header. It is not supported by the counted 13F shares (78.2% of the 10-Q count; 75.0% of Nasdaq's). The count-based figure is the correct one as of the Q2 2026 13F cycle, subject to the Vanguard caveat (floor ~70%).
II. Who is doing what — trend verdicts
Institutions — ACCUMULATING (Q2 2026). 766 new positions opened vs 168 closed. Among holders who changed: 2,049 increased (+343.8M shares) vs 1,385 decreased (−235.1M) → net +108.8M shares among changers; 384 holders unchanged (3,363.8M shares). Holder arithmetic reconciles: 2,049 + 1,385 + 384 = 3,818.
Insiders — NET BUYING, CEO-led (last 12 months, Form 4, primary). 44 genuine Form 4 filings parsed. Open-market purchases: CEO Lip-Bu Tan bought 105,263 shares at $95.00 on Aug 11, 2026 (~$10.0M); CFO Zinsner bought 5,882 at $42.50 (Jan 26, 2026). Open-market sales: three, totalling 81,280 shares (~$7.47M) — April Miller Boise 20,000 @ $49.05 (Feb 2) and 40,256 @ $99.53 (May 1); Naga Chandrasekaran 21,024 @ $118.28 (May 29). Net: +29,865 shares / +$2.78M. No parsed Form 4 references a Rule 10b5-1 plan; no sale since May 2026; no Form 4 in the last 7 days (latest: Aug 14, 2026). The remaining filings are routine option/RSU exercises (code M) and tax withholding (code F) — not open-market signals. Two entries in the EDGAR type-4 feed (Aug 10 / Apr 27, 2026) were offering/prospectus documents, not Form 4s, and were excluded.
Pension funds (identified subset) — NET TRIMMING. Name scan of the 400 largest holders identified pension funds holding 81,420,761 shares = 1.61% of shares outstanding (identified subset only — funds below the top-400 cutoff are not counted; partial by construction). Largest: Canada Pension Plan Investment Board 13,238,118 (+15.6%); National Pension Service (Korea) 9,999,492 (−2.0%); CalPERS 8,731,138 (−29.5%); CalSTRS 6,671,769 (−3.2%); NY State Common 4,756,025 (−5.0%); Florida SBA 3,803,073 (−1.5%). Other notable cuts: Teacher Retirement System of Texas −31.9%, PSP Investments −34.4%, HOOPP −54.7%; adds: Colorado PERA +55.4% (small base), Retirement Systems of Alabama +27.0%. Norges Bank (61,714,672 sh) is sovereign wealth, not a pension, and sits in the main holder table.
Retail & other (estimated) — FALLING SHARE. The residual's share fell as the share count rose from 4,362M (Apr 2025) to 5,044M (Jul 2026) on government and strategic placements — dilution of the residual, measured as a residual, labelled an estimate.
Short interest (primary-derived, Nasdaq/FINRA settlement data). 148,504,504 shares short at the Oct 15, 2026 settlement — 2.94% of shares outstanding, 1.54 days to cover — down −11.2% from Sep 30 (167,199,908; Sep 15: 158,808,750). Read: covering into the Oct 29 earnings, not fresh shorting. Borrow fee and shares available: UNVERIFIED — iborrowdesk was unreachable at build time; no borrow figure is stated anywhere in this report.
III. Top holders — who did what (Q2 2026)
| Holder | Type | Shares | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| BlackRock, Inc. | index/active giant | 426,478,962 | −4.7% |
| Vanguard Group (parent line — stale Dec 31, 2025 date, see caveat) | index giant | 404,522,308 | +3.5% |
| U.S. Government — Dept. of Commerce (non-13F, proxy registry) | government strategic | 433,323,000 | — |
| Vanguard Capital Management LLC | index (sub-adviser) | 285,230,183 | +1.1% |
| State Street Corp | index giant | 216,849,675 | +1.2% |
| NVIDIA Corp | strategic corporate | 214,776,632 | 0.0% |
| Invesco Ltd. | active/index | 157,902,890 | +2.6% |
| Geode Capital Management | index (Fidelity) | 110,339,857 | +0.7% |
| FMR LLC | active (Fidelity) | 94,431,754 | +64.2% |
| Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC | index (sub-adviser) | 89,395,975 | +4.6% |
| SoftBank Group Corp | strategic corporate | 86,956,522 | 0.0% |
| PRIMECAP Management | active | 75,250,958 | −0.7% |
| Capital Research Global Investors | active (Capital Group) | 73,749,883 | −4.6% |
| Norges Bank | sovereign wealth (Norway GPFG) | 61,714,672 | +2.0% |
| Morgan Stanley | bank/broker | 61,516,453 | +13.9% |
| Capital World Investors | active (Capital Group) | 55,212,818 | −30.9% |
Top-3 moves: FMR (Fidelity) +64.2% — added ~36.9M shares, the biggest percentage add among major holders. Capital World Investors −30.9% — cut ~24.7M shares, the biggest major-holder exit-lean. BlackRock −4.7% — trimmed ~21.1M shares, still the largest 13F holder. (Cross-checks: 12-month MarketBeat counts, secondary — 1,983 buyers vs 1,280 sellers; $41.69B inflows vs $16.96B outflows.)
IV. Last 7 days — the tape signal (separate from quarterly positioning)
13F data is quarterly and can never answer a 7-day question. This is a tape signal — short-term, lower confidence — built from Nasdaq official daily prices (primary market data), dated options flow (secondary), and Form 4 filings (primary).
Verdict: MIXED — early accumulation signs, not confirmed. Sessions Oct 19–27, 2026: closes 92.03 → 91.69 → 92.96 → 85.49 → 86.96 → 90.47 → 93.74. Up-volume 438.5M shares vs down-volume 218.2M = 2.0×. The A/D oscillator (A/D minus its 20-session average) improved from −193.5M (Oct 22) to −69.7M (Oct 27) — rising, still below zero. The 10-session OBV slope improved from −473.4M to −154.4M — improving, still negative. Short interest fell 11.2% (covering into earnings). Dated options flow was two-sided (a $5.42M Dec $115/$120 call spread on Oct 21; Nov 20 $95-call premium concentration flagged Oct 27; a secondary positioning read on Oct 25 tilted slightly bearish with put wall $80 / call wall $96 as of that date).
Quarter tape trend (13 weekly bars, weeks ending Jul 31 – Oct 27, 2026): accumulation built through September (A/D oscillator peaked +187M the week ending Sep 25, price ~$123), rolled over hard in early–mid October (trough −148M / OBV slope −656M), and the last two bars recover (−148M → −70M). Offloading peaked mid-October and is fading; the tape is stabilising, not yet back above zero. The 7-day verdict sits at the recovering end of this trend. Design note: this quarter's tape trend will be scored against the actual Q3 2026 13F positioning change when those filings complete (~mid-November 2026) — the module checks whether the tape called it right.
Dark pool, last 7 days — GAP. No verified INTC-specific dark-pool prints for Oct 19–27, 2026 were publicly available at build time: MobyTick's FINRA-based weekly reports do not cover INTC, and FINRA ATS weekly transparency lags several weeks. No substitute or modelled figure is shown, and the weekly dark-pool overlay on the trend chart is likewise absent and labelled. Context only (not dark-pool volume): FINRA daily short-sale volume was 41% of volume on Oct 26 vs a 40% 20-day average — normal range.
V. Method, lag and limits
- 13F positions are Q2 2026 (dated Jun 30, 2026; filings due by Aug 14, 2026). Q3 2026 filings were in progress at build time. The 13F lag — quarter-end plus up to ~45 days — applies to every institutional figure here.
- This snapshot is entry #1 of the module's own first-party quarterly series; a single-method multi-quarter institutional history is not honestly available yet, so no multi-quarter institutional chart is shown.
- Retail & other is an estimated residual by construction (shares outstanding minus identified classes) — it also absorbs non-13F holders, foreign holders and any 13F under-coverage.
- Two share counts are in circulation (10-Q 5,044M primary; Nasdaq 5,255M); percentages are stated on the 10-Q count with the Nasdaq basis shown for the institutional class.
- Sources: DEF 14A (accession 0000050863-26-000061); EDGAR Form 4 XML (CIK 0000050863); Nasdaq institutional-holdings aggregation of 13F filings; Nasdaq official short interest; Nasdaq official daily price history. Aggregator figures labelled secondary; the borrow tape is UNVERIFIED and omitted.
v1.0 — original publication, Oct 28, 2026; no corrections.