One month and a day since the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) last made an all-time, the index did it again Monday right at the opening bell clearing both short-term resistance and breaking a small string of lower highs that has been in place since that 6/5 high.
Semis started the month on a negative note last Wednesday, underperforming the S&P 500 by over a percentage point. In the last two trading days, though, the index has turned things around and is only marginally underperforming the S&P 500 MTD. While the index may be underperforming, the vast majority of the index’s 30 components are still in positive territory with just five stocks in the index in the red on a MTD basis. Leading the way to the downside, Micron (NASDAQ:MU), ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ:ON), and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) are the only three stocks down more than 1%. To the upside, Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM), ASML, and Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) are all up over 4%.
Even with the index’s recent underperformance, since both the February market highs and the March lows, semis are trouncing the broader market. While the S&P 500 is down 6.41% since its peak on 2/19, the SOX is up close to 3% while Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL), Teradyne (TER), Monolithic Power (NASDAQ:MPWR), CREE, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), and ASML are all up over 20%. Not surprisingly, returns since the March lows have been jaw-dropping. While no stocks in the SOX have seen triple-digit percentage gains, four stocks are up by more than 80%, no stocks are down, and the ‘average’ stock in the index is up over 51%.
For a group to be considered such a good leading indicator for the broader economy, the fact that semis continue to outperform the broader market is a positive trend.
Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.
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