VanEck Semiconductor ETF Jumps 4% as Memory-Chip Rally and Oversold Conditions Spark Bounce
Published on 07/21/2026 at 18:34 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF clawed back a chunk of its recent losses on Tuesday, surging 4.01 percent to €96.51 as a coordinated rally in memory-chip stocks and a wave of analyst upgrades lifted sentiment across the sector. The move followed a brutal four-week selloff that had pushed the fund more than 13 percent below its 52-week high and sent the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index briefly into bear-market territory.
The catalyst for Tuesday’s bounce came from Wall Street’s biggest banks. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan publicly declared the 30–40 percent plunge in memory stocks an overreaction, forecasting that memory prices would climb at least 25 percent quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter on the back of persistent data-center chip shortages. Samsung Electronics surged 6.15 percent in Seoul, SK Hynix added 4.08 percent, and South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 3.56 percent to 6,747.95 points. In European trade, Infineon gained 6.76 percent, STMicroelectronics rose 5.40 percent, and ASML climbed 4.22 percent, while smaller names such as Elmos, Aixtron and Suss Microtec notched gains between 3.4 and 7.7 percent.
The rebound capped a dramatic reversal from the previous week, when the fund had been caught in a downward spiral triggered by two separate shocks. Taiwan Semiconductor raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $60–64 billion, up from an earlier $52–56 billion – a move investors interpreted as a sign that returns on earlier investments were flowing more slowly than expected. Then Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI unveiled a model it claimed matched leading US systems, sending the ETF down more than 4 percent in a single session and deepening doubts about the valuation of the entire AI trade. The selloff was compounded by escalating US strikes against targets in Iran, which kept risk appetite suppressed even as the chip sector bled.
Technical signals and fund flows tell a mixed story
Analysts largely attributed Monday’s tentative uptick – the ETF closed at €92.79, up 0.69 percent – to oversold conditions rather than a fundamental shift. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index had slumped more than 20 percent from its late-June record, fulfilling the technical definition of a bear market, before bouncing 2.11 percent on Monday. The relative strength index for the ETF stood at 42.9, neutral territory that suggested the market was still searching for direction.
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The fund had attracted noticeable inflows even during the slide, according to Renaissance Macro Research, but the firm cautioned that such enthusiasm historically led to positive returns only 29 percent of the time. By contrast, outflows preceded gains 51 percent of the time – a signal that contrarians might find more conviction in the current dip. The US-listed equivalent, the SMH, boasted a market cap of roughly $70.5 billion and a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 27.12.
Yet the bullish narrative is not without contradictions. Morgan Stanley, while calling the memory selloff overdone, also predicted a rotation of AI investment away from chipmakers toward hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Meta. The bank raised its cloud-capital-expenditure forecast to $805 billion for 2026 and $1.116 trillion for 2027, a bet that the real beneficiaries of the AI buildout will be the companies building the infrastructure rather than those supplying the silicon.
Chart remains fragile as earnings season hits full stride
Despite the sharp bounce, the ETF still trades 13.19 percent below its 52-week high of €111.18, set in late June. The 50-day moving average stands at €97.53, less than 1.1 percent above the current price – a level that will serve as an immediate test of the rally’s durability. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index had recovered to roughly 18 percent below its record before Tuesday’s move, still deep in corrective territory.
The coming days are likely to determine whether the recovery has legs. Texas Instruments and IBM reported this week, Alphabet follows on Wednesday, and Intel and SAP are due on Thursday. Nvidia, the fund’s largest holding, will not report until late August, leaving the sector’s bellwether in a holding pattern. Semiconductor companies are expected to account for 44 percent of the S&P 500’s earnings growth this quarter, with sector profits forecast to rise 133 percent year-on-year – a statistic that underpins the bull case even as short-term volatility persists.
Strategists caution that Tuesday’s rally, while welcome, is a stabilization signal rather than an all-clear. The ETF’s heavy concentration in Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, Broadcom and Micron has amplified both the selloff and the rebound, and the real test will come when hyperscalers reveal whether their enormous capex commitments are finally translating into revenue. For now, the market is watching the memory-chip turnaround and the earnings calendar with equal intensity.
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