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Semiconductors

When Chips Are Down, They Rebound Slowly But StronglyWhen Chips are down; invest if you can and hedge if you must. Having soared in 2020 & 2021, semiconductor shares tanked brutally as tremors from geopolitics, sinking consumer confidence and bloated inventory struck. Q4 overhang is dragging the industry down in the near term, which might have set a bearish outlook in the short-term, but times are changing. Structural forces and business cyclicality are now becoming robust tail winds for semiconductors, bringing a bullish outlook in the medium-to-long term for the sector. Therefore, this case study argues that an asynchronous time spread in CME E-Mini PHLX Semiconductor Sector Futures ("CME Semiconductor Futures") could potentially deliver a 2.8x reward to risk ratio by first taking a short position in futures expiring in March 2023 followed by a path-dependant long position in futures expiring in September 2023. INDUSTRY ON THE CUSP OF A SUPERCYCLE Chips everywhere. Semiconductors are ubiquitous as products become sophisticated. Rapid growth of mobile devices, emergence of EVs, and rising cloud adoption have created endless demand for higher processing speeds and larger memory. Chipmakers have benefited from this trend. Anticipated exponential growth in consumer durables, IoT, gaming, EVs, and AI/ML will translate into strong sustained demand for chips. Speaking at World Economic Forum, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asserted that AI would go mainstream not in years but in months. Emergence of generative AI will form a fresh stream of demand for chips. EVs require twice as much chip content than traditional ones. Rising cloud usage will amplify demand from datacentres for graphics processing units (GPUs). In short, semiconductor industry is on the cusp of a demand super cycle. DEMYSTIFYING THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDEX The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ("SOX") is a market capitalization-weighted index comprising of the top thirty (30) semiconductor firms listed in the US. Top names include Nvidia, TSMC, and ASML forming 48% of SOX. The top ten comprise 80% of the SOX. SOX rallied 202% from its low in March 2020 to its high in November 2021. As monetary policy shifted from QE to QT, SOX plunged 46% in 2022 touching its lowest level in October 2022. Since then, it has bounced back 43%, outperforming both NASDAQ-100 and S&P 500 which are up merely 10% during the same period. A CYCLICAL INDUSTRY Semiconductors industry is inherently cyclical given the considerable time lapse between spotting fresh demand and matching them with new supply. In a recent report, JP Morgan cited that semiconductor stocks are close to a cyclical bottom. Each time the industry hits a bottom, it recovers impressively. In one-year and three-years following a cyclical dip, shares in this sector spike 40% and 95% on average, respectively. While short term demand looks bleak on waning consumer confidence, the USD 600-billion industry's long-term prospect looks resolutely bright. LET THE AI WARS BEGIN Revolutionary AI: ChatGPT made its debut in November. It sprinted to a million users in just five days. The excitement in generative AI is palpable. It will revolutionise content generation while delivering vast productivity gains in others. Inflection ahead: AI is approaching an inflection point. Its usage is going mainstream. Expect tech giants to invest heavily to outcompete. If this marks the start of AI wars, the semiconductor firms that make AI work will harvest outsized profits. Shovel makers hit jackpot: During the gold rush, it was the shovel makers that got rich more so than the diggers. In this AI gold rush, the shovel makers (i.e., the semiconductor stocks) are set to reap enormous gains. Nvidia already shining: Nvidia is the market leader in GPUs whose parallel processing capabilities form the core for delivering AI. ChatGPT adoption alone could bring incremental revenues of up to USD 11 billion over the next year, Citigroup estimates. TSMC & ASML well positioned: Nvidia GPU production depends on two firms - (a) the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC), and (b) ASML Holdings (ASML). Berkshire stake in TSMC: TSMC recently announced stunning Q4 earnings. Its net sales grew 42.8% YoY, while its net profits & EPS were up 78% YoY contributing to an ROE of 26.4%. Little wonder that TSMC was one of Warren Buffett's recent investments where his firm acquired USD four billion of TSMC shares last November. ASML dominance: Meanwhile ASML commands a monopoly on key tech (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography or EUV). EUV is used in producing cutting-edge nano chips that AI requires. ASML is set to secure a windfall on rising AI adoption. CHIPS ACT TO RESHORE PRODUCTION Supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic exposed the vulnerability of over-reliance on globalisation. Russia-Ukraine conflict caused adverse impact with Russia being a major supplier of Palladium and Ukraine being a key source of Neon gas. To reduce over-reliance in a key industry, US last year legislated the CHIPS Act which is aimed at reshoring production on US soil supported by more than USD 150 billion of grants and tax incentives. NO PAIN, NO GAIN IN A V-SHAPED PATH AHEAD Supply ramped-up but a little too late: Clogged supply chains plus demand spike during the pandemic fuelled chip shortage. Ramped up production which always takes a long lead time arrived but at a time of pale consumer demand (PC demand down 28% YoY) late last year. Frail consumer sentiment: Persistent inflation, recession fears, and uncertain outlook, meant lower consumer durable sales. This has slashed demand for semiconductors resulting in one of the largest inventory corrections in the industry. The sector is cooling faster and getting colder than expected. Firms face a tough market saddled with excess inventory compounded by frail end-markets except for automotives. Downgraded chips: Intel reported a loss for Q4 last year and expects a weak first half this year with return to growth in second half. Earnings from other industry majors point to significant headwinds. Analysts have downgraded several chip stocks. Fund flows in ETFs: Fund flows into and out of leveraged ETFs this year show investor activity is moving in tandem with these macro shifts. The Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3x ETF (3 times long exposure to SOX) suffered net outflows of $341 million while the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3x ETF (3 times short exposure to SOX) gained net inflows of $1.1 billion. Insiders are Net Sellers: Insider Activity among majors show that they have been net sellers over the last three months except for Qualcomm, Intel and Applied Materials. Bullish Price Targets: In sharp contrast to this gloomy outlook, analysts covering the top stocks anticipate an average +15% price gain over the next 12-months. TRADE SET-UP This case study proposes a two-legged calendar spread as set out below. Each CME Semiconductor Futures contract provides exposure to twenty-five (25) index points approximating to USD 75,000 in notional with required margin of USD 5,900. TRADE LEG 1 : A short position in the contract expiring in March 2023 will provide exposure to the short-term correction. Entry: 2978 Target: 2571 Stop Loss: 3180 Profit At Target: $10,175 Loss At Stop: $5,050 TRADE LEG 2 : A long position in CME Semiconductor Futures expiring in September 2023 will provide exposure to recovery in the latter part of the year. Entry: 2710 Target: 3718 Stop Loss: 2410 Profit At Target: $25,200 Loss At Stop: $7,500 Aggregate Reward-Risk Ratio: 2.8x MARKET DATA CME Real-time Market Data helps identify trading set-ups and express market views better. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com DISCLAIMER Trade ideas cited above are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management under the market scenarios being discussed. They shall not be construed as investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services. This material has been published for general education and circulation only. It does not offer or solicit to buy or sell and does not address specific investment or risk management objectives, financial situation, or needs of any person. Advice should be sought from a financial advisor regarding the suitability of any investment or risk management product before investing or adopting any investment or hedging strategies. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. All examples used in this workshop are hypothetical and are used for explanation purposes only. Contents in this material is not investment advice and/or may or may not be the results of actual market experience. Mint Finance does not endorse or shall not be liable for the content of information provided by third parties. Use of and/or reliance on such information is entirely at the reader’s own risk. These materials are not intended for distribution to, or for use by or to be acted on by any person or entity located in any jurisdiction where such distribution, use or action would be contrary to applicable laws or regulations or would subject Mint Finance to any registration or licensing requirement.
TVC:SOXLong
by mintdotfinance
2
What is ChatGPT and why is AI suddenly a big deal?The latter part of 2022 and the early part of 2023 have seen many developments around ‘generative AI’. The big story recently concerns the ChatGPT system. Conceptually, there is a prompt, and then the system can come up with text to match the prompt. ChatGPT has ‘gone viral’ in that many people have delighted in experimenting with different prompts to see what comes up. It’s also the case that other systems have also recently been developed where the output may be a picture or a video. Broadly, these systems are taking a prompt and then using their training data in order to predict something that makes sense against the prompt as an output. The world hasn’t seen these capabilities until now, so there are many speculations as to what it means in terms of intelligence or what types of business models will make sense to build against it. More than just a craze: the real-world applications of AI A tool like ChatGPT is training on large amounts of data to make predictions. People use it now as a novelty—it can predict the next likely word in a string of text within the context of a prompt. It can, however, be trained to predict other things, and these predictions, if they are accurate, could be valuable. There are tools already in existence that help software developers with coding, predicting the likely ‘next line of code’ for them to write. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, looks to integrate the technology into something like Microsoft Office 365, which would mean nearly instant exposure to billions of users. It’s really only when you expose billions of people to a given piece of technology that you really start to see all the various potential use cases. During 2022, DeepMind unveiled new results from its AlphaFold system, which is designed to predict the shape of proteins. The system had come up with outputs specifying the predicted shape of more than 200 million proteins, and a significant percentage of these predictions were viewed as being as accurate as experimental results. Predicting the shape in which a given protein will fold, by itself, means nothing, but it becomes exciting when you start to consider that frequently the shape of the protein encodes the function of the protein, and the function could relate to many distinct therapeutic outputs that could then be used to fight diseases and other health problems. Who stands to gain? It is difficult to predict which industry or company will benefit the most from AI applications because it’s possible that any company or industry that uses data could benefit. It is natural to think of the large technology companies—Amazon, Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft to name a few—and you can see how AI is being used to directly enhance the experience of their customers. Amazon and Microsoft, in particular, offer AI services through their cloud computing platforms. However, it’s also true that pharmaceutical companies could benefit in drug discovery, insurance companies could benefit from better predictions - the list is endless. We find it exciting to think about how different developments can build on each other. Take fusion power as an example. We have already seen that different machine learning systems may unlock novel ways to manage the reactions and control the system. If we can combine machine learning with certain quantum computing capabilities, maybe the calculations can broaden in scope and advance in speed in ways to allow further developments beyond what is possible today. AI depends on data, and quantum computing may allow certain types of calculations to occur in parallel, taking on more data and having flexibility to instantly adjust. One thing we remind people of is that, 20 years ago, many of us didn’t have regular internet access—certainly not high speed. Can we really predict where we’ll be 20 years from now? AI against the macroeconomic backdrop If we are looking at the world in March 2023, the biggest near-term catalyst is most likely the macroeconomic backdrop as viewed through 1) announcements from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) 2) data on the US labour market 3) data on the path of inflation and 4) anything related to whether or not there is a recession. Many of these announcements have directions that are either ‘more positive’ or ‘more negative’ for the companies that represent the AI landscape. For example, a Fed that is less likely to be raising interest rates further is better for AI stocks than a Fed that believes that many more rate hikes are necessary to fight inflation. 2022 was a tough year for equities, especially technology stocks. Within artificial intelligence, the companies that were newer and that did not yet have positive earnings in established businesses saw their valuations decline. Part of this is natural, in that higher interest rates and expected positive earnings far in the future combine into an entity with an overall lower valuation. Additionally, we consider many specific semiconductor companies to be heavily exposed to artificial intelligence. Many of these companies have seen share prices drop due to declining demand for smartphones and personal computers, which means the demand for chips has been lower in light of increasing supplies and capital spending projects. What next for AI? Artificial intelligence is a megatrend that has a chance to impact every sector and nearly every other megatrend. Currently, there is a viral excitement around ‘generative AI.’ ChatGPT is the key example of this concept. Even if articles abound on the expected valuation for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, it is not yet clear how generative AI will create revenues and profits in the near term. The giant cloud computing platforms, like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, allow many users to take advantage of AI and machine learning and may be best positioned to drive revenue from the theme. Either way, artificial intelligence is a growing landscape and recent developments have once again brought AI conversations to the fore. Whilst a software like ChatGPT may, at first glance, be dismissed as a ‘novelty’ it is clear that applying the power of AI to different industries (from manufacturing to healthcare) could have a genuinely transformative effect on the world we live in.
NASDAQ:NQINTEL
by aneekaguptaWTE
SOX Update (weekly chart)SOX, as well as the broader XLK, has diverged somewhat from SPY, and remains stubbornly above the 52 week EMA. The red D point is a longer term Gartley target based on a 61.8% retrace from point C. However, it is still in an Ichimoku resistance area, and has potential to reverse. Key support areas are; 1) 2854 -2794 DOJI, and potential pivot area 2) 2848-2742 Blue Point B, a prior swing high and potential pivot area 3) 2838 Gann Confluence Point and potential support Should pivot areas 1) and 2) above fail, the final point to watch is the Gann Confluence around 2838. A fail below this point would be bearish. Also, an extended stay below the 52 week EMA would be bearish. Presently the chart sits above the longer term downtrend set from 1/22 high to 10//22 low and has a ways to go before that channel should continue.
NASDAQ:SOX
by UnknownUnicorn13101
1
NVDA running out of juice - SOXS here we comeJohn was an avid investor in the stock market, and he had been closely following the semiconductor industry for some time. Lately, there had been a lot of hype around artificial intelligence, and this had caused stock prices in the industry to soar. The technical formation of the chart looked good, and John had seen his investment in the semiconductor industry go up quite a bit. However, as time went by, John started to notice signs of exhaustion in the market. He realized that care needed to be taken to protect his investment, and so he decided to move up his stops or exit the position altogether. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but John knew that it was the right thing to do. Do the right thing. Don't be greedy. We're right by the 61.8 and above the 50 from the high to the low. The end.
NASDAQ:NVDA
by bitdoctor
Semiconductors are off to a HOT Start in 2023Semiconductors are off to a HOT Start in 2023…after a COLD 2022… As we begin 2023 looking at technology-oriented investments, a ‘consumer-slowdown’ and related macroeconomic factors are front and centre in investor considerations: Worldwide shipments in personal computers (PCs) totalled 286.2 million units in 2022, a 16% decline from 20211. Global Information Technology spending contracted 0.2% in 2022, dropping to a total figure of $4.38 trillion. It is rare to see this figure, which represents spending in many different categories of things, contract. PCs, smartphones and other devices are seeing the biggest cuts. Devices spending dropped more than 10% in 20222. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has indicated that its revenue can drop as much as roughly 5% in the current quarter, and that it expects lower capital expenditures when measured against the 2022 figures. TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip maker, and it has set the capital expenditure budget at $32 to $36 billion, which compares to $3.3 billion 20223. However, the fact that semiconductors companies behave in a cyclical fashion, sensitive to the ups and downs of supply and demand is not new. There was a deluge of negative news and a downplaying of forward looking expectations in the second half of 2022. During earnings call, the CEOs of semiconductor companies put on a masterclass of seeking to lower forward-looking expectations. Therefore, we could be in a position where, at the start of 2023, any news that does not represent the most bearish of possible outcomes is actually viewed positively. Semiconductor Companies have Rallied Strongly to Start 2023 When many investors think about ‘growth’ or ‘tech’, they first thing of the Nasdaq 100 Index. This index functions as a baseline, where the top holdings are some of the world’s largest companies driving what we think of as ‘information technology’ forward. In Figure 1a, we created a ratio chart, where, as the line moves from the left to the right of the page4: An upward or positive slope represents the outperformance of Semiconductors companies relative to the Nasdaq 100 Index. A downward or negative slope represents the underperformance of Semiconductors companies relative to the Nasdaq 100 Index. When we see that the overall trend going back to 2015, we know that Semiconductors companies have generally performed strongly—since the line is higher at the right of the chart than the left, we know that Semiconductors outperformed the Nasdaq 100 Index. However, the line is not stable or smooth, and it is characterized by sweeping upward and downward trends. We show those figures specifically in Figure 1b. This full period was strong from ‘tech stocks.’ The Nasdaq 100 Index was up 14.5% annualised, whereas Semiconductors were up 18.2% annualised. Our ‘recent memory’ is colouring our perception, so what we likely remember closely is how it felt to watch Semiconductors drop -34.6%, but at the same time the Nasdaq 100 Index dropped -32.6%. 2022, as we all well know, was a rough year for the returns of technology-oriented stocks. We would say that the 2022 experience was largely a result of what had come directly before—a massive expansion in near-term demand as many people shifted their working practices and purchased different types of hardware to allow them to work from anyway. From 17 June 2019 to 31 December 2021, Semiconductors returned 55.0%, annualised, while the broader Nasdaq 100 Index returned 36.4%. We find it interesting that, even with all the same headwinds, like higher interest rates and a higher cost of capital and a lowered expectation of global economic growth, Semiconductor stocks have risen 15.7% in the first 3 weeks of 2023, which compares with the Nasdaq 100 Index rising 8.5%. 3 weeks is not a significant length of time, but it’s notable that this period immediately precedes companies reporting their earnings results from the period ended 31 December 2022. Maybe there is an implicit assumption in these returns that the results could be ‘less bad’ than what the CEOs of the Semiconductor companies had guided toward in prior quarters. Conclusion: The Two Forces of 2023 that Determine the Semiconductor Return Experience No one knows how the performance of semiconductor companies will evolve over 2023, but we are watching two critical areas of the space. Even if 2022 was poor from a direct share price performance perspective, there was an enormous array of announcements of planned new plants to be built in different states in the U.S. There was also the passage of the ‘Chips Act.’ Even if it will take years before these plants will be making physical chips that can be sold, the signal that these companies are adjusting their supply chains to be less geographically reliant on Taiwan is an important one. As we stated, the general CEO of a semiconductor company was focused on lowering guidance for the upcoming quarterly earnings results. When this happens, the future reports become less about the number on the page and more about whether the number on the page is ‘less bad’ than the guidance. If there is a perception that things are ‘less bad’ it’s possible that share prices can rally even if the results in isolation do not look great. If Semiconductors can continue to outperform the Nasdaq 100 Index through the upcoming earnings season, this would lend strength to the concept that they may be able to hold onto this for the year, as opposed to us remembering that quick 3 week period of strong performance before the market gave it all back. Sources 1 Source: Jacob, Denny. “PC Shipments Drop Sharply in a Slump Expected to Last Until 2024.” Wall Street Journal. 11 January 2023. 2 Source: Loten, Angus. “Global IT Spending Decreased in 2022.” Wall Street Journal. 18 January 2023. 3 Source: Jie, Yang. “TSMC Warns of Possible Revenue Drop, Spending Cut.” Wall Street Journal. 12 January 2023. 4 When referencing Figures 1a and 1b, ‘Semiconductors’ is defined as the universe of companies within the MSCI ACWI Semiconductor and Semiconductor Equipment Index.
NASDAQ:NQUSB10102010
by aneekaguptaWTE
Its $STM turn to outperformWhenever I find two stocks acting well I always want to buy the best but, how to know this? Both are forming a shark pattern in the weekly chart, and both are from the same industry, semiconductors. So how to choose? For me, a simple ratio will do it. It will show which one is outperforming the other. In this case NYSE:STM is being buyed more aggressively than NASDAQ:MCHP . I'll wait for the breakout above $51 to get in and use the previous weekly lows for the stop loss. The thing is that if STM breaks out but NASDAQ:MCHP then something might be wrong. Always keep an eye on how related stocks behave.
NASDAQ:MCHPLong
by dpuleo19
$MCHP Technical Analysis: Stock at Yearly and Monthly HighsYearly High Stock price is at yearly highs. Monthly High Stock price is at monthly highs. Above Bollinger Band Price is above the upper 14 day bollinger band. This is mostly a reversal signals as price has overextended and might come down. Pivot Machine Gun (PMG) When price makes continued highs for 5 days. This is a bearish reversal signal only if price starts to break the low of the last day's candle. Pocket Pivot The volume on the green candle today was higher than the volume on any red candles over the last few weeks. This can signify institutional accumulation. Parabolic Rise The stock has stayed above the upper bollinger band for 3 straight days. Stochastics Overbought Stochastics value is above 80.
NASDAQ:MCHPLong
by ImmaculateTony
$ON Technical Analysis: Yearly High Close, Trendline ResistanceYearly High Close Price is close to the yearly highs. Trendline Resistance Daily price is touching a trendline resistance level. Price can hit the resistance level and start going down, which would be a bearish signal. It can also break out of it to form a breakout, which would be bullish. Pivot Machine Gun (PMG) When price makes continued highs for 5 days. This is a bearish reversal signal only if price starts to break the low of the last day's candle. Pocket Pivot The volume on the green candle today was higher than the volume on any red candles over the last few weeks. This can signify institutional accumulation. Stochastics Overbought Stochastics value is above 80. Wedge Descending wedge. These are calculated base on last 3 monthly candles. Therefore, they are best visible on the monthly and weekly chart. $ON 3/17 Bullish
NASDAQ:ONLong
by ImmaculateTony