Intel’s Rare Upgrade and Nvidia’s Index Entry Fuel Chip ETF’s V-Shaped Recovery
11.06.2026 - 21:54:58 | boerse-global.de
The semiconductor sector has staged a remarkable turnaround after one of its worst weeks in years. The VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF, a bellwether for the industry, jumped nearly 4% to €95.46 on Thursday, reversing a sell-off that had erased more than 6% in seven days. The rally was driven by an aggressive analyst upgrade of Intel and the looming inclusion of Nvidia in the S&P 500 — two catalysts that investors are betting will sustain the AI-driven boom.
The trouble began on June 3 when Broadcom delivered a quarterly report that fell short of expectations. The chipmaker forecast AI-related revenue of $16 billion for the third quarter, missing analyst estimates of $17.2 billion, and left its full-year guidance unchanged. The stock plunged 14% the next day, and the shockwaves spread across the supply chain. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index suffered its steepest single-day drop since March 2020, wiping out more than $1 trillion in market value. The VanEck ETF slid from its all-time high of €102.98, set on the same day, shedding about 7% in the following sessions.
Macroeconomic headwinds only deepened the pain. A stronger-than-expected US jobs report for May pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 4.54%, reducing the odds of near-term interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Growth-sensitive tech stocks took an additional hit as investors recalibrated valuations.
Yet the sector’s fundamentals remained intact, and the recovery was swift. Bank of America caught markets off guard by upgrading Intel directly from “Underperform” to “Buy,” skipping the neutral rating entirely. Analyst Vivek Arya raised the price target from $96 to $135, citing the rapid rise of so-called “agentic AI” — systems that can autonomously execute complex tasks — as a driver of surging demand for CPUs and infrastructure. The bank projects a massive profit leap for Intel by 2030. The upgrade alone added more than 11% to Intel’s stock on June 8, its biggest single-day gain in over a month, following reports that Google had placed an order for more than three million AI chips with Intel for delivery by 2028. TSMC’s capacity constraints are creating openings for competitors.
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Intel is not the ETF’s largest holding — that honor belongs to Micron Technology, which commands roughly 14% of the portfolio. Micron had bounced back nearly 10% the previous Monday after falling 13% in the prior session, a move analysts dismissed as technically overdone. The demand for high-bandwidth memory chips for AI servers continues to accelerate. Advanced Micro Devices, the second-largest position at about 11.4%, also benefited from Bank of America, which lifted its price target to $560.
Nvidia remains the standout favorite among bank analysts, and its upcoming inclusion in the S&P 500 on June 22 is providing additional structural support. Index-tracking funds will be forced to buy Nvidia shares regardless of price, drawing momentum traders and institutional investors who position themselves ahead of the rebalancing. Nvidia’s own numbers reinforce the narrative: the company generated $215.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2026, a 65% year-over-year jump.
Wells Fargo chief strategist Ohsung Kwon captured the mood: “The market reaction was more driven by positioning than fundamentals. The sector was heavily overbought. I don’t believe the semiconductor bull market is over.”
The VanEck ETF has now posted a year-to-date gain of nearly 74%, and its 12-month return stands at 142% from the 52-week low of €37.62 set in June 2025. The fund manages €7.4 billion in assets. While it still sits about 7% below its all-time high, the macro tailwinds are unmistakable. The big cloud providers — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — have penciled in combined infrastructure spending of around $725 billion for 2026. As long as that capital keeps flowing, the structural demand for AI chips will remain intact, short-term volatility notwithstanding.
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