If you have spent 15 or 20 years at Intel, you have watched this stock do almost everything. Flat for years. Then a run almost nobody saw coming. Now a drop of about 13% in a single week, from $113.12 on October 7 to $98.13 on October 14, and roughly 31% below its 52-week high of $142.35.

When a stock moves like this, I usually get one of two questions. Should I sell? Should I buy more? Both are fair, and both come down to your own view of Intel and your own plan. Neither is the question I want to talk about today.

Here is the one that gets missed: if you were already planning to help your kids financially, a drawdown is the cheapest time to do it with stock. Same gift. More shares. And any future recovery happens in their accounts, not your estate.

What's Actually Happening

The annual gift tax exclusion is the amount you can give any one person each year without filing a gift tax return or touching your lifetime exemption. For 2026 it is $19,000 per giver, per recipient. A married couple can give $38,000 to each child, either by each spouse gifting from their own account or by electing gift splitting (which does require filing Form 709).

The key detail: the exclusion is measured in dollars, not shares. When you gift stock, the value is the average of the high and low price on the day of the transfer. So when the price falls, the same exclusion moves more shares.

Let's make it concrete. Robert has been at Intel for 24 years. He and Linda live in Hillsboro, Oregon, and have two adult children. They have always meant to start giving each kid some Intel stock and never got around to it.

One $19,000 gift: about 133 shares at $142.35 (52-week high) vs. about 194 shares at $98.13 (Oct 14 close)
$76,000 ($38,000 to each of 2 kids): about 534 shares at $142.35 vs. about 774 shares at $98.13

Same $76,000 of exclusion. About 240 more shares out of the estate.

Now suppose Intel eventually gets back to $142.35. That is an illustration, not a forecast. Nobody knows where this stock goes next. If it does, those 774 shares would be worth about $110,250. That is roughly $34,250 of growth that happened in the kids' accounts instead of Robert and Linda's estate, without using a dollar of lifetime exemption.

And the exclusion resets every January 1. A gift in December 2026 and another in January 2027 means two years of exclusions, $152,000 for this couple, potentially landing while the price is still low. At today's price, that is about 1,549 shares, and about $68,500 of recovery outside the estate in the same illustration.

"But I'm nowhere near the estate tax"

Federally, you might be right. The 2026 lifetime gift and estate exemption is $15 million per person, so $30 million for a married couple. Most Intel households will never owe federal estate tax.

Oregon is a different story. Oregon's estate tax starts at $1 million, the threshold is not indexed for inflation, and rates run from 10% to 16%. A paid-off house in Washington County, two 401(k)s and a 20-year pile of Intel stock clears $1 million easily. On that $68,500 of growth, Oregon's rates mean roughly $6,850 to $11,000 of estate tax that simply never applies. (Washington has its own estate tax too, with a $3 million exclusion for deaths on or after July 1, 2026. California has none.)

Why This Catches People

The timing part is easy. Which shares you give is where people get hurt. Three rules matter.

1. Your kids inherit your cost basis. Gifted stock carries over your cost basis (what you paid, or for RSUs, the value at vest). If Robert gifts ESPP shares he bought near $20, his kids hold a $20 basis and will owe capital gains on everything above it when they sell. If Robert held those same shares until death, his heirs would generally get a step-up in basis to market value, and that gain would never be taxed. For a couple in their 60s with very low-basis shares, the step-up can be worth more than the estate tax saved. That is the real trade-off, and it deserves actual math, not a rule of thumb.

2. Underwater lots lose their loss. Plenty of Intel RSUs vested this year at $120 or $130. If Robert gifts shares with a $125 basis while Intel trades at $98, the dual-basis rule kicks in: when the market value at the gift is below your basis, your kids' basis for calculating a loss is the lower market value. That $27 per share of loss effectively disappears. Nobody gets to use it.

3. ESPP shares have a clock. Gifting ESPP shares before the qualifying holding period (2 years from the start of the offering and 1 year from purchase) counts as a disqualifying disposition. That means Robert recognizes the purchase discount as ordinary income in the year of the gift, even though he received no cash.

So the shares that usually make the best gifts are the ones with a cost basis closest to today's price, past any ESPP holding period. Not the oldest shares. Not the newest ones.

What You Can Do About It

These are options, not instructions. The right mix depends on your basis, your estate, your state, and your plans for your kids.

Do nothing. Completely valid. Gifting a stock you would rather sell, or giving before you are ready, is not a strategy. The drawdown only helps if the gift was already in the plan.
Use the 2026 exclusion before December 31, with the right lots. Up to $38,000 per child for a married couple, picked from lots with a basis near the current price. On the numbers above, that moves roughly 45% more shares than the same gift at the 52-week high.
Stack December and January. Two calendar years, two exclusions, potentially a few weeks apart: up to $76,000 per child for a couple. The value is whatever Intel trades at on each transfer day, so the second gift could move more or fewer shares.
Sell the underwater lots and gift cash instead. Sell the shares that vested at $120 or more, harvest the capital loss yourself (it can offset other gains, plus up to $3,000 a year of ordinary income), and give the cash. Watch the wash sale rule: buying Intel within 30 days before or after the sale, and that can include an RSU vest or ESPP purchase, can disallow the loss.
For larger estates, use lifetime exemption. Gifts above the annual exclusion use part of your $15 million exemption, often into an irrevocable trust. In a drawdown, the same exemption amount covers more shares. This is permanent, gives up the step-up on whatever you transfer, and needs an estate attorney alongside your advisor.

One note if your children are younger: for kids under 19 (or under 24 if full-time students), the kiddie tax taxes their investment income above a small threshold at your rate, so the math changes.

None of this is a view on whether Intel is cheap. Gifting does not change how much Intel your family holds in total. It changes who holds it, and where the growth lands.

The Bottom Line

The gift exclusion counts dollars, not shares. At $98, $19,000 moves about 45% more Intel than it did at $142, and any recovery after that happens outside your estate.

The timing is the easy part. Choose lots with a basis near today's price, wait out ESPP holding periods, and never gift a lot that is underwater.

If you are a long-time Intel family weighing this before year-end, we are happy to look at your lots and run the numbers with you. Start here.

This content is for educational purposes and does not constitute personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. Share prices are as of the October 14, 2026 close, and all share counts and recovery figures are hypothetical illustrations, not forecasts.