Quarterly Outlook
Macro Outlook: The US rate cut cycle has begun
Peter Garnry
Chief Investment Strategist
Senior Quantitative Analyst, Saxo Bank
Summary: Semiconductor stocks had a strong week last week after having been under pressure this year, and the rally was boosted by positive guidance reported by some of the major semiconductor manufacturers. The semiconductor theme is ranking on top this week in our thematic screener, which monitors themes breaking out of their usual patterns. We zoom in on the theme below.
In this new weekly publication series we monitor trends in a pool of more than 40 equity themes. Every week we focus on one themes which have moved the most in the previous week relative to its usual trading pattern, and we provide an unbiased sample of companies within the theme.
The confidence in semiconductor stocks have been declining this year as the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have been hurting the industry. Additionally the US CHIPS Act is constraining the exports of semiconductor equipment to Chinese companies. However, semiconductor stocks presented a strong comeback last week in the rallying stock market. The chipmaker Lam Research posted a beat-and-raise quarter, and ASML reported sales guidance which beats estimates as well as stating that the impact from US curbs would be ‘fairly limited’.
The list below illustrates 10 companies from different areas of the theme, and the list is intended as inspiration only:
How the list was created: Each theme consists of a number of companies from ETFs and indices within the given theme. The list above is created by sampling 10 different companies from the theme, making sure that the companies have a low mutual correlation within the theme, such that they span a broad part of the overall theme. Note that this is based on historical performance which is not an indicator for future returns. The list is for inspirational purpose only and should not be considered as trade recommendations in any way.
Price evolution of a thematic ETF on semiconductors, over 6 months and 5 years, respectively: