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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been watching both Intel and Meta stock with interest. They’re in a fairly similar situation. The reason why Intel trades at a P/E of 15 while Meta is hovering around 10 must be mostly the dividend. The market doesn’t trust Zuck but it still has some trust in Gelsinger to somehow balance the dividend with the massive fab investments.

If Intel gives up on the dividend, they could be down another 30-40% to Meta-like P/E levels.

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It would just be a question as to whether the reinvestment would be expected to yield a high enough return. Theoretically, at least, if the dividend is being repurposed for investment and the market believes that that reinvestment will drive enought growth, then the stock price could stay flat or even go up. Especially in the current environment where there aren't many good places to invest capital.

I'd think that scenario is fairly unlikely though, and in any situation where the dividend goes away volatility will certainly go up.

Not only do the markets not trust Zuckerberg. But since he still has a controlling stake in the company, the stock should trade at a steep discount since stockholders have no say in the company.

But Intel would presumably be investing the forgone dividends in something that looks better to investors than the metaverse moneypit.

Meta is doing buybacks, which is just another form of dividend, so in that regard they are not that different.

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