ServiceNow's 5-for-1 Split: A Data-Driven Look at the Price Action

Intel’s Rally vs. ServiceNow’s Silence: A Case Study in Bad Data

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I was asked to look into the fundamentals behind ServiceNow’s stock price. The provided source material carried a promising title: “ServiceNow tops estimates, approves 5-for-1 stock split.” This is precisely the kind of catalyst that merits analysis—a beat on earnings, a forward-looking split. One expects to find revenue figures, earnings per share, and management commentary.

Instead, the document contained a sprawling, multi-page cookie policy from NBCUniversal.

This isn’t just a clerical error; it’s a perfect, if unintentional, metaphor for the state of retail investing analysis. You’re promised actionable intelligence and instead handed irrelevant legal boilerplate. The signal you need is buried under an avalanche of noise, or in this case, replaced by it entirely. Another source document simply returned an error: “Access to this page has been denied.” It’s a fitting summary. Investors are often denied access to the clean, unvarnished data required for sound decision-making, left to trade on headlines and hope.

So, we have no real data on ServiceNow. But we do have a fascinating data set on a different company entirely: Intel. And by dissecting it, we can see just how wide the chasm between a corporate narrative and its underlying financial reality can be.

Deconstructing the Intel Narrative

Intel’s stock has been on an incredible run, jumping over 100%—to be more exact, 111% since its 52-week low in April. A rally of that magnitude suggests a fundamental, game-changing turnaround. The accompanying narrative is one of an AI-driven resurgence, a sleeping giant awakening to reclaim its throne. The company’s Q3 results superficially support this, with revenue and earnings beating analyst expectations.

But when you parse the numbers, the story begins to fray.

Revenue increased just 3% year-over-year to $13.7 billion. In the high-growth semiconductor space, a 3% top-line expansion is anemic, not revolutionary. The positive earnings figure of $0.23 per share, while a significant improvement from the prior year’s loss, was driven substantially by cost-cutting measures, including a plan to reduce its workforce by over 20% by 2025. This isn’t growth; it’s triage. Profit derived from firing people is a fundamentally different signal than profit derived from selling more products.

And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling. Management points to high demand for its AI processors, even claiming that demand is exceeding supply. Yet, the Data Center and AI segment’s revenue was actually down 1% year-over-year. How does one reconcile soaring demand with declining sales? The company blames supply constraints, but a skeptic might question the true depth of that demand, especially when competitors like AMD continue to steadily eat into Intel’s market share in both client and server CPUs.

The narrative leans heavily on future potential, primarily its 18A process node (a 1.8-nanometer chip). This technology is critical for Intel to compete with rivals who are already leveraging TSMC’s more advanced manufacturing processes. Yet, Intel’s own CFO, Dave Zinsner, has admitted that production yields for this crucial node are still below industry standards. The timeline to fix this stretches to 2027. That’s an eternity in the semiconductor industry.

This rally isn't built on current performance. It’s built on the hope that Nvidia's $5 billion investment will bear fruit, that the 18A node will eventually work, and that AI demand will be so overwhelming it will lift all boats, even those with leaky hulls. Hope is a powerful emotion, but it’s a notoriously poor financial instrument.

The most glaring red flag, however, is the valuation. The stock is trading at 88 times earnings. For a company with anemic revenue growth, a weak forward outlook (management guided for lower revenue and profit in the next quarter), and significant execution risk on its core technology, that multiple is indefensible. You are paying a premium price for a turnaround story that has not yet begun. It’s like paying the full price for a concert ticket when the band has only promised to show up for soundcheck in three years.

Hope Is Not a Financial Instrument

What we see with Intel is a classic divergence: the market is pricing in a flawless execution of a multi-year recovery plan, while the current financial data shows a company struggling with low single-digit growth and fundamental production challenges. The 111% rally is a vote of confidence in a narrative, not a reflection of reality.

And that brings us back to ServiceNow and its cookie policy. The absence of data for ServiceNow and the misleading narrative surrounding Intel’s data are two sides of the same coin. In one case, you’re given nothing. In the other, you’re given a story so compelling it makes you want to ignore the numbers. Both outcomes are equally dangerous for an investor. The lesson here is clinical and unforgiving: your job is not to believe the story. It is to verify the numbers. If you can’t get the numbers—or if the numbers contradict the story—you have your answer.