The cost of insuring Intel's debt posted its biggest one-day jump since October 2022, alongside record spreads for Broadcom and SpaceX
Intel’s five-year credit default swap spread widened to a record 123.5 basis points on October 30, 2026. It was the biggest single-day move for the contract since October 2022.
The chipmaker had plenty of company. Credit traders spent the day repricing risk across the tech sector, and the bill for protecting against a default went up for several of the industry’s biggest names at once.
What moved, and by how much
A credit default swap works much like an insurance policy on a company’s bonds. The buyer pays a regular premium, and if the borrower defaults, the seller covers the loss.
That premium is quoted in basis points, where one basis point equals one hundredth of a percentage point. A spread of 123.5 bps means protection costs 1.235% of the insured amount per year. When the number climbs, the market believes default risk has risen, or at least that it deserves more compensation for carrying that risk.
Intel’s spread was sitting at 104 bps as of October 28. Before the spike, the contract had traded in a range of 90 to 104 bps. Two trading days later, it was at 123.5 bps, well clear of the old ceiling.
Other tech names saw similar moves on the same day:
- Broadcom: its CDS rose by approximately 10 bps to a record 175.4 bps.
- SpaceX: its five-year CDS jumped by around 20 bps to 266.5 bps, also a record.
- Alphabet: its CDS climbed by about 5.1 bps to around 84 bps, its largest rise since July.
Why Alphabet’s quarter rattled everyone else
The trigger was Alphabet’s third-quarter results, which disappointed the market. The weak report fed into a broader worry that has been building around the sector: that the pace of AI-related capital spending across the semiconductor and tech supply chain may not be sustainable.
Stock investors were less unified. Equity markets gave a mixed response, which makes the credit move stand out more.
A market that has grown up fast
The scale of hedging activity adds context. CDS trading volume tied to the largest hyperscalers and chipmakers has surged more than eightfold so far this year, reaching $176 billion.
For Intel specifically, the comparison to October 2022 is the benchmark worth watching. The latest move was the largest one-day widening in roughly four years, and it pushed the spread to a level the contract had never recorded. Going from a 90 to 104 bps band to 123.5 bps is a meaningful break from recent trading behavior.
What this means for investors and the sector
Intel, Broadcom, SpaceX and Alphabet are very different businesses, yet their default protection moved together on a single earnings report.
With $176 billion traded year-to-date across the biggest hyperscalers and chipmakers, CDS pricing has become a more visible real-time gauge of how nervous the market is about the AI capex cycle.
