Tech leads first half stock gains — but the biggest winners weren't in the U.S. - CNBC

In the first half of 2026, the technology sector emerged as the clear winner, although international tech stocks outperformed their U.S. counterparts. While U.S. Big Tech firms like NVIDIA, Apple, and... Read original →

The first half of 2026 marked a structural pivot: AI capex is shifting from U.S.-centric applications to non-U.S. manufacturing and equipment. TSMC (Taiwan, China) and SK Hynix surged due to 3nm yield ramp and HBM4 volume production, directly boosting order visibility for ASML and ASMI into 2027. Technologically, EUV bottlenecks are accelerating chiplet adoption, making BE Semiconductor a stealth winner in back-end packaging. Geopolitically, U.S. export controls have raised global fab compliance costs by 15–20%, pushing Samsung and UMC to build 'de-Americanized' fabs in Southeast Asia. While NVIDIA retains AI dominance, AMD and Huawei’s Ascend are encroaching via HBM+chiplet designs. Over the next 12–24 months, the real tailwind lies in power infrastructure and memory bandwidth—control over high-bandwidth, low-power interconnects will dictate AI compute pricing power.