Shares of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) were on the rise today, up as much as 2.7% today, before falling back to a modest gain as of 12:21 p.m. ET. Still, that was much better than the rest of the semiconductor sector, as defined by the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX), which was down 1.5% at that time.

Intel's outperformance can be chalked up to an analyst upgrade from one of the more bearish Intel-watchers on the street. It wasn't exactly an enthusiastic take, but it did reinforce the fact that the recent 8.3% rally in Intel shares over the past week may have something to it.

This morning, Bernstein semiconductor analyst Stacy Rasgon upgraded Intel from a "sell" to a "hold," while raising his price target from $20 to $30, compared with Intel's current price of around $32.61 today.

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Source Fool.com