Software stocks have been crushing chip stocks to a never-before-seen degree — at least if you adopt a very short time horizon.
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF is up 9.3% over a six-day span, while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF is up 5.3%. That 14.6-percentage-point outperformance for the software sector is the largest on record over any six-session span, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
“Obviously this barely registers” over a longer period, noted Michael Toomey, the managing director of equities at Jefferies, who flagged the recent outperformance of the software sector in a Tuesday note. He also sought to contextualize it in the context of the broader chip rout that’s gripped markets in recent years.
Whether the recent momentum in software stocks can sustain is a matter of debate. Recent trading action notwithstanding, software shares have been battered this year over fears that artificial intelligence will eat away at traditional business models. You may think the selloff is overdone relative to the scope of the threat — but whether that means stocks will actually stop falling on things like Anthropic product announcements is another question.
“One of the largest concerns is that AI will continue to take more share of seat-based models following the recent updates from Anthropic, where it released a slew of new AI tools designed to automate high-value work,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a recent note to clients.
He called this the “AI ghost trade,” in reference to his view that investors are chained to the “fictional concept” that companies will be able to dramatically slash their budgets for traditional software offerings by leaning in to cheap AI alternatives.
Mizuho trading-desk analyst Jordan Klein wrote Tuesday that some on the buy side are saying the software sector still seems “uninvestible,” which is not a particularly encouraging sign.
For his part, Klein thinks sentiment has “clearly” yet to bottom, judging by the severe negative reaction to MongoDB’s earnings on Tuesday. The company is “one of the more owned and liked” software players within the sector, but shares fell 22% after a weaker-than-expected forecast that struck Klein as merely “conservative.”
He wondered if some of the recent positive momentum for software stocks more broadly could be linked to short sellers covering positions, rather than active managers jumping back in to buy.
Meanwhile, after a protracted run-up in chip stocks over the past few years, enthusiasm has cooled somewhat. Investors showed no love to Nvidia’s stock last Thursday in the wake of a blowout earnings report. And Sandisk’s shares have been among the market’s hottest this year, but they’ve fallen in five of the past six sessions.
Klein expects a rebound especially for Sandisk, Micron Technology, Applied Materials, Lam Research and other members of the picks-and-shovels trade.
It “might take a few days to flush out, but I think these stocks bought first vs. other areas of beaten-down tech,” he wrote.
