By Jessica Menton
Global trade tensions have pummeled shares of highflying
semiconductor companies like Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Micron
Technology Inc. and Nvidia Corp. over the past two months. More
pain may still be to come.
Investors are looking to the G-20 summit that starts Friday for
updates on trade talks with China, and any further pressure on chip
stocks could spell more trouble for the broader market. That is
because chip stocks often lead the S&P 500 on the way up and
the way down.
The broad stock-market index and the semiconductor group, which
currently makes up 3.2% of the index, have a correlation of 0.94,
according to FactSet, going back to the beginning of 2016 when chip
stocks began their steady ascent.
Correlation is measured on a scale of minus-1 to 1. A reading of
minus-1 means two assets are moving perfectly in opposite
directions, while a correlation of 1 means they are moving
perfectly in tandem.
The PHLX Semiconductor Index, up 86% since the beginning of
2016, has tumbled 9.9% from the start of October as shares of chip
companies have been caught in the crosshairs of escalating
China-U.S. trade tensions. Chips are used in several hot areas of
growth: data centers, gaming and artificial intelligence.
Despite a 31% slide since Oct. 1, AMD shares are still the
S&P 500's best-performing stock this year, with a gain of 108%.
Micron shares have tumbled 14% from the beginning of last month,
pushing them into the red for the year with a decline of 5.9%. And
Nvidia shares, which have lost 43% of their value since early
October, have plunged more than 20% in the past two weeks alone in
the wake of a disappointing earnings report.
The PHLX index has underperformed the broader S&P 500, which
has shed 5.8% since the beginning of last month. The sector,
though, has gotten some relief this week, with the PHLX index
rising 2.3% Wednesday in a broad market rally.
More clarity about their path going forward should come after
President Trump's trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in
Buenos Aires later this week. Mr. Trump has said it is "highly
unlikely" that he would hold off on his existing plans for raising
tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports, and that if no deal
came from the meeting he would order additional levies on other
Chinese goods. That would likely include Apple Inc. iPhones and
laptop computers, both powered by semiconductors.
"Investors want to see whether the tariff bark is worse than the
bite," said Daniel Ives, Wedbush Securities managing director and
equity analyst.
Some investors, though, see the recent slide in chip stocks as a
chance to pick up shares on the cheap. James Wang, analyst at ARK
Invest, said his firm has been buying Nvidia shares this month. He
points to expectations of strong revenue growth in the coming
years, driven by artificial intelligence and autonomous
driving.
"For us, Nvidia was a very obvious buying opportunity," Mr. Wang
said, adding that excess inventory concerns surrounding the company
are only relevant for the next few quarters. "It's hard to see how
in three to five years this issue would still be relevant by
then."
The company's forward price-to-earnings ratio was 22.8 as of
Monday, down from 42.1 at the start of the year, while the S&P
500's ratio was down to 15.3 from 18.1, according to FactSet.
JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, also cited
recent interest from clients in Nvidia, helped in part by its
cheaper valuation and the holiday shopping season, which is
expected to help boost technology shares amid increased demand for
electronics.
Among the top five stocks traded by TD Ameritrade retail clients
on Black Friday were Apple, Amazon.com Inc., AMD, Nvidia and
Netflix Inc., according to Mr. Kinahan.
As chip stocks have faced demand worries, Wedbush's Mr. Ives
said he has noticed a growing trend of investors rotating out of
semiconductor stocks and into software stocks such as VMware Inc.
and Palo Alto Networks Inc., which have exposure to the cloud or
cybersecurity and have delivered strong earnings.
Another tech giant that has benefited from the move to the
cloud: Microsoft Corp., which briefly eclipsed longtime rival Apple
as the world's most valuable company earlier this week.
"Microsoft isn't sexy, but it's an impressive story," Mr.
Kinahan said, referring to how the company changed its business
model in recent years to pivot toward cloud computing.
"The cloud business continues to heat up," he said. "Microsoft
made a bet there, and that bet is paying off."
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Write to Jessica Menton at Jessica.Menton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2018 08:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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