VanEck Semiconductor ETF Gains as AI Leaders Surge

VanEck Semiconductor ETF ( $SMH ) has risen by 2.49% in the past week. It has experienced a 5-day net inflow of $884.21 million.
This is due, in part, to market sentiment on some of the ETF’s largest holdings. For example:

• Nvidia Corporation stayed firmly in the spotlight as the leading play on the global AI boom, with its shares already up about 40% in 2025 and analysts still projecting around 40% additional upside. The company’s latest Q3 FY26 results showed accelerating revenue growth and wider margins as its new Blackwell GB200/GB300 data‑center platforms ramp, underpinning visibility on roughly $500 billion of data‑center orders for Blackwell and next‑generation Rubin GPUs through 2025–26. Wall Street debate is now about “how high” rather than “if”: bear‑side scenarios still see modest upside to around $200 per share, while the most bullish targets reach $352, implying close to 90% appreciation based on long‑term AI earnings power through 2030. Top analysts at Evercore ISI and Jefferies argue the stock remains surprisingly cheap versus its growth profile, trading at a mid‑teens multiple of 2027 earnings, and consensus rates it a Strong Buy, even as investors weigh rising competition from AMD and the risk that today’s AI infrastructure spending eventually shifts from a scramble for capacity to a slower, digestion phase.
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited is reinforcing its role as the critical manufacturing backbone of the AI chip cycle, with a record quarter and a sharply higher capex plan that signal confidence in demand for advanced nodes. The foundry giant has raised its 2026 growth outlook to about 30% year over year and plans to spend up to $56 billion on capacity, a move that is driving huge new equipment orders across the supply chain and has helped reignite sentiment in semiconductor names tied to AI. Analysts at TD Cowen lifted their price target on the stock to $370 (Hold rating) after better‑than‑expected results driven by “manufacturing excellence,” while Barclays has gone even higher with a $450 target, though valuation and emerging margin pressure are seen as reasons for caution rather than outright enthusiasm. On the flow side, Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment has been opportunistically adding to its position, and TSMC’s factories are reportedly running so close to full capacity that “spill‑over” orders are starting to flow to Intel and others, underscoring just how tight leading‑edge supply remains as AI demand accelerates.
• Broadcom Inc. has emerged as one of the Street’s preferred second‑tier AI winners, leveraging its custom accelerators and networking chips to ride the same long‑term data‑center wave that is powering Nvidia. Jefferies’ Blayne Curtis continues to call Broadcom his top AI pick, now modeling earnings above $19 per share by 2028, with a conservative path to $25, driven by bespoke AI silicon and strong demand from cloud heavyweights, including projects tied to OpenAI and Meta. Hedge‑fund manager Cathie Wood has been building her stake, with ARK buying more than $50 million of stock in a single day, while Wells Fargo, Bernstein, and Goldman Sachs have all turned more bullish, citing overdone concerns about margins and competition and highlighting Broadcom’s scale and supply‑chain strength in custom chips; consensus targets imply roughly 30–35% upside and a Strong Buy rating. At the same time, some newer coverage is more cautious: RBC Capital initiated at Hold, warning that Broadcom’s valuation now sits at a premium to Nvidia despite comparable AI exposure and lingering uncertainty around the durability and size of large customer ramps such as Anthropic and OpenAI, leaving investors to balance rich pricing against a powerful, but still evolving, AI earnings story.