The Week

SMH.US closed the week at $606.56, up 5.86% from the prior Friday’s close of $573. The S&P 500 rose 1.21% over the same period, so the ETF outperformed by about 4.65 percentage points. Day by day, the week opened at $581.895 on Monday, marked the week’s low at $578.51 the same day, and then moved higher through Tuesday’s intraday peak of $608.665. Friday took the index to the week’s high of $609.66 before settling at $606.56. The overall pattern was a steady, upward-trending week rather than a straight-line rally. The price sits well above both the 20-day average of $568.832 and the 60-day average of $570.499, and the week’s high is within reach of the 60-day range high of $627.7 set on 2 July.

Sector News

It was a busy week for semiconductor news, with AI infrastructure remaining the central theme. Nvidia featured heavily, including the $12.9bn acquisition of Hugging Face and the $3.36bn pre-IPO raise by the Nvidia-backed cloud platform NScale. AMD crossed the $1trn market-cap mark and introduced new AI tools with Perplexity, while Marvell unveiled a 2nm breakthrough for AI data centres and was among the AI infrastructure names rated buy by Seaport Research. Micron entered the pre-earnings spotlight, with some analysts publishing price targets well above the spot. On the supply-chain side, Thailand approved a semiconductor strategy targeting $80bn in investment, Singapore launched a national semiconductor brand initiative, and SK Hynix’s Solidigm was reported to be weighing an IPO that could value the unit at up to $150bn. The Dutch prime minister also raised ASML export restrictions with Washington, adding an external variable. Sector sentiment leaned upward, with the Nasdaq notching an all-time closing high during the week.

The Week Ahead

The macro calendar is concentrated in housing and labour data. On Tuesday, 29 September, FHFA house prices, the Case Shiller 20-city index, JOLTS job openings and consumer confidence are due. For semiconductors, these data points mostly shape the liquidity and risk-appetite backdrop. On the industry side, Micron’s earnings preview appeared this week; if its report falls in the coming days, the incremental news on memory-chain pricing and AI demand will be a key test for the sector’s momentum. Progress on the ASML export-restriction talks between the Netherlands and the US, as well as follow-through on semiconductor policy in Thailand and Singapore, also remain in view.

In Short

The semiconductor ETF rose 5.86% this week, outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin. The sector’s tone was supported by the AI infrastructure narrative and national-level policy moves, but the latest trading day’s capital snapshot shows large-lot money on the net-sell side, with medium and small lots net buyers. That split suggests some internal divergence as the price approaches the upper end of its recent range. The message-heavy week sits alongside open variables including ASML export restrictions and macro housing and rate signals. What comes next is whether Micron’s earnings window extends the memory-chain optimism, and whether policy news sustains or interrupts the current upward rhythm.

This article is generated by LongbridgeAI from market data, for information only and not investment advice.