US chip stocks rise after steepest weekly selloff in months

Oct 19 : US chip stocks recovered some ground on Monday, bouncing after a bruising selloff last week as lower Treasury yields and easing crude oil prices offered some support to the recently battered AI trade.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which is the largest ETF tracking US chip-related companies in terms of assets under management, climbed 3.6 per cent in premarket trading after falling almost 12 per cent last week.

Here are more details:

• Intel was among top gainers, up 4.2 per cent after tumbling over 14 per cent last week

• J.P.Morgan upgraded its rating on Intel to "neutral" from "underweight", citing future positive earnings revisions on agentic AI demand and chip scarcity

• Chip giant Nvidia up 1.9 per cent, AMD gained 3.5 per cent, Marvell Technology rose 4.7 per cent and Broadcom added 3.5 per cent

• Memory chipmaker Micron Technology up 3.6 per cent after dropping 14.6 per cent last week

• Data storage firms Sandisk up 4.3 per cent, Western Digital rose 3.1 per cent and Seagate Technology added 3.4 per cent

• Analog chipmakers also gain: Texas Instruments up 2.4 per cent, Analog Devices gains 2.9 per cent and ON Semiconductor rises 3 per cent

• The Philadelphia chip index dropped 11.4 per cent last week, marking its biggest weekly decline since March 2025

• The index had fallen for eight straight sessions as of last close, wiping out about $2 trillion in market value during the rout

• Hot inflation raising the odds of Fed rate hikes and doubts about high AI-spending paying off weighed on tech stocks last week

• Despite recent losses, the Philadelphia chips index is up 57.2 per cent so far this year

• Chips stocks rallied earlier this year as investors viewed the space as one of the biggest winners of the AI boom

• Lam Research, Texas Instruments and Western Digital are set to report quarterly earnings this week

• Megacap tech stocks Meta Platforms, Tesla and SpaceX are also set to report earnings this week