U.S. semiconductor index surges sharply, posting biggest gain in 15 months

[Financial News] Semiconductor stocks on U.S. exchanges, which had recently fallen sharply amid concerns over excessive investment in artificial intelligence (AI), rebounded strongly.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX), made up of 30 major semiconductor stocks listed in the United States, jumped 8.19% on the 30th local time, marking its biggest gain in about 15 months since April 9, 2025, when it rose 18.73%.
SK hynix's American Depositary Receipt (ADR) also rebounded 17.5% on the U.S. market that day. SK hynix listed its ADR at $149 per share on the 10th, and its closing price that day was $168.01, about 12.8% higher than the offering price. Micron shares rose 18.3%, while SanDisk Corporation jumped 25.8%.
Semiconductor-related exchange-traded funds also surged. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) rose 6.82%, its biggest one-day gain since April 9 last year, when it advanced 17.16%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) also climbed 8.5%.
Semiconductor stocks rallied on the back of earnings reports from Microsoft (MS) and Lam Research. Microsoft, which announced second-quarter results the previous day, saw its shares soar 15.5% on strong growth in Azure cloud services and a plan to expand capital spending, marking its biggest one-day gain since 2008. Its market capitalization increased by about $450 billion in a single day, the largest ever for an individual stock.
Shares of U.S. semiconductor equipment maker Lam Research surged 18% on strong earnings and guidance driven by AI-related demand, posting their biggest gain since 1999.
On the 30th, other semiconductor-related stocks on Wall Street also rose, including Applied Materials, Inc. (15.0%), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) (13.0%), Intel (11.3%), Marvell Technology (12.2%), and NVIDIA (2.7%). Shares of ARM Holdings, the British chip company listed in the United States, also climbed as demand increased for its self-developed AI server central processing unit (CPU), the 'AGI CPU.' In an interview with CNBC on the same day, ARM Holdings CEO Rene Haas said, "Demand for the AGI CPU has exceeded $2 billion in combined fiscal 2027-2028 revenue," adding, "This shows that the market for agentic workloads and inference CPUs is key."
[email protected] Park Jong-won Reporter