Benzinga has published a list of five semiconductor stocks it says investors should own into the end of the year, and it includes two names that have spent much of this cycle out of favor: Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD).

The inclusion of both companies is the notable part. Benzinga's headline list frames the two chipmakers as year-end positions rather than trades, a stance that runs against the recent positioning consensus, where capital has concentrated in AI-accelerator leaders and foundry incumbents while Intel in particular has traded as a turnaround story.

What the pick implies about Intel

Intel's appearance on a buy list into year end rests on the argument that the market has already priced in most of the bad news. The company has spent the past several quarters executing a costly split of its manufacturing and product businesses, building out foundry capacity, and cutting its dividend to fund the transition. Its client computing and data center groups face pressure from AMD on one side and Arm-based competitors on the other.

The bull case that outlets like Benzinga typically attach to the name is straightforward: a depressed valuation, a foundry strategy tied to Western government funding for domestic capacity, and optionality if its process roadmap delivers competitive nodes. The bear case is equally concrete — continued foundry losses, capital intensity, and the risk that the turnaround consumes more cash than the balance sheet comfortably supports. The stock's direction into year end will likely hinge on whether the next round of earnings shows foundry revenue growth and progress on external customers.

What the pick implies about AMD

AMD's inclusion reflects a different argument. The company competes directly with Nvidia in AI accelerators through its Instinct product family and continues to take share from Intel in server CPUs with its EPYC line. The investment debate around AMD centers not on survival, as with Intel, but on valuation — whether its AI accelerator business can grow fast enough to justify the multiple the stock carries.

For a year-end framing, AMD represents the diversified play: server CPU share gains, a data center GPU franchise, and an embedded business inherited from Xilinx. Benzinga's decision to include it suggests the outlet expects the data center spending cycle to remain intact through the final months of the year.

Why a stock list matters to the industry reader

Investor positioning lists are not engineering roadmaps, but they signal where the market expects the commercial picture to shift. Semiconductor equities have bifurcated sharply: AI-exposed names command premium multiples, while companies tied to PCs, traditional servers, and analog markets have lagged as those end markets digest inventory.

Intel sits in the second camp with an expensive strategic bet attached. AMD straddles both. A list that pairs them says the publisher sees value in both the recovery trade and the AI-growth trade — a broader bullish stance on the sector than the market's current narrow focus implies.

Caveats worth noting

Benzinga's article is an investment recommendation, not a company disclosure. The headline names Intel and AMD explicitly; the source available for this dispatch does not detail the remaining three stocks on the list, their price targets, or the specific financial rationale behind each pick. Readers should treat the selection as editorial opinion from a financial news outlet rather than confirmed guidance, and verify the full list and reasoning directly before acting on it.

Semiconductor stocks entering the final stretch of the year face a familiar set of catalysts: quarterly earnings from Intel and AMD, updates on AI accelerator shipments and foundry customer wins, and macro data on data center capital spending. How those land will determine whether Benzinga's year-end picks look prescient or premature.