Stefan Mileschin

Beancounters from Forbes have been adding up the numbers and divided by their shoe size and come up with the conclusion that the fashion bag maker Intel's fourth quarter will be more rubbish than the entire Twilight film series.

Chipzilla is expected to tell the world about how miserable things are on Thursday and already analysts are expecting a 29.7 percent drop in earnings from a year ago. Generally the estimate is that Intel will scrape together a profit of 45 cents per share, down from earnings of 64 cents per share a year ago.

This figure is also down from three months ago when everyone thought that Intel would make a 54 cent profit.

Analysts project revenue to fall 0.9 percent in comparison to last year's quarter, after being $13.89 billion a year ago. For the year, revenue is projected to come in at $53.43 billion. Not bad given the current climate, but a lot more is expected from Intel and this is part of a decline in revenue that snapped a streak of three consecutive quarters of growing revenue.

According to Forbes, the majority of analysts think investors should hang onto their Intel shares. The gut feeling is that Intel will pick up a bit eventually. Of course they could also stick their money on the filly at the 10.20am at Derby with the sheepskin nose bag.

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