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Posted June 11, 2026 at 11:00 am
Dear Investor,
You have probably noticed: semiconductor stocks are booming. The PHLX Semiconductor Index has gained 177.73 percent within a year at the time of writing.
The strong rise attracted many investors. Inflows into leveraged instruments were high, and in Korea it was primarily seniors who took on debt to buy semiconductor stocks.
Euphoria seems to be setting in. We are asking ourselves what comes next.
Seasonality provides an answer to this.
Take a look at the first chart. It shows you the seasonal pattern of the PHLX Semiconductor Index in blue. In gold you can see, for comparison, the seasonal pattern of the S&P 500. Both were calculated over the past 25 years.
As you can clearly see, semiconductor stocks are set to decline over the coming four months from a seasonal perspective. The broader market in the form of the S&P 500 also does not fare well during this period, as it is the weak summer season. However, its seasonal pattern is notably better than that of the Semiconductor Index.
Bear in mind: the seasonal chart above also incorporates the most recent extreme bull run of the Semiconductor Index. When a phase like 2025/26 is exceptionally strong for the Semiconductor Index, it correspondingly pulls the seasonal average higher.
This raises the question of what the seasonal pattern of the Semiconductor Index looks like without this extreme phase. The next chart therefore shows you the seasonal pattern of the PHLX Semiconductor Index again from 2001, but this time excluding the years 2025 and 2026.
You can now see how weak the seasonal pattern of the Semiconductor Index is during the coming summer months. The seasonal pattern through to the end of September is already genuinely weak without the influence of the most recent extreme rally.
What will happen with semiconductor stocks over the coming months? Nobody can tell you that with certainty – the future is open. From a seasonal perspective, however, the probability of declines in the coming months is significantly elevated, particularly for semiconductor stocks.
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Originally Posted June 9, 2026 – Semiconductors vs. S&P 500: Who Wins Seasonally?
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If a sector is exceeding historical norms during one season why would we assume it would conform to those norms in another season? In other words, while there may normally be the seasonal variation described here what’s to say that whatever is driving the huge run-up of the past year is particularly seasonal?
The basic argument is founded on (it seems) consumer behavior … born of the age of digital technology (the first computer i worked on as a consultant had program max length of 256 bits – on a subsequent job you could walk around in the “mainframe” and programs submitted by punch cards … and about 18 yrs as IT consultant to mostly fortune 100 company’s ). We have now graduated to the age of AI, the demands of expanded memory/processing power exponentially pushing boundaries … quite possibly seasonality included.