intel mulling nvidia buyout?

Yes, you read that right. Graphics maker Nvidia’s stock price soared 8 percent today amid on a report by Reuters that chip giant Intel was preparing a buyout of the company, the culmination of months of rumors that began with Intel rival AMD’s purchase of Nvidia competitor ATI last July. An analyst from brokerage firm vFinance Investments was even so bold as to suggest that the deal would go down “tonight.” As in, right now. I can just imagine them signing the blood contract, the chief executives swearing their undying loyalty to one another and agreeing to swap wives sometime.

But seriously, this is all very, very specious, as the article notes that Intel has no clear incentive for this move considering that it already has a brisk business making and selling its own integrated graphics chipsets in Intel-branded motherboards. The price would also be astronomical compared to the AMD-ATI deal (Nvidia has a market cap of $10bn) Yowzers! So, don’t be too disappointed if you wake up tomorrow and find that this was all much ado about not much. Remember, these things happen.  It will all be fine. I promise.

–D. S. W.