Chip Stocks Peak Every Two Years, Analyst's Chart Says — and 2026 Fits

Semiconductor stocks have peaked roughly every two years since 2020 — and on November 13, 2026, technical analyst Thierry Borgeat posted a weekly chart of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index on X with past cycle tops circled, pointing to another one forming now.

He opened bluntly: "Zoom out, and the panic starts to look familiar." Then he told readers exactly what to look for. "Look for the little ovals. 2020. 2022. 2024. 2026. Roughly every two years, semiconductors climb into a cycle top, the party gets too loud, and the index falls."

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index — the SOX — tracks the largest U.S.-listed chip designers, manufacturers, and equipment makers. That's the broadest public proxy for the AI hardware trade. If Borgeat's pattern holds, the stakes run well beyond one sector. Chip stocks anchor major indexes, and the AI investment cycle behind them is the largest capital spending story in the market today.

Why Do Chip Stocks Move in Two-Year Cycles?

The mechanics are old and well documented. The industry tends to overbuild. Shortages push customers to double-order, chipmakers raise capital spending, and once inventory piles up, buyers pause orders until they work through it. Stock prices usually peak before earnings do. That's why tops tend to show up while reported results still look great — the market prices the turn before the income statement shows it.

How Hard Have Chip Leaders Already Fallen?

Recent price action matches the first half of Borgeat's script. Over the past month:

• NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) fell 28.86%
• Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) dropped 21%
• Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) lost 19.53%
• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) slipped 12.32%
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) fell 10.74%
• Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) held up best, down 3.04%

One session in that stretch ranked as the second-worst day on record for chip stocks. A sharp bounce followed — AMD gained 31.29% over the past week — before Friday's session reversed part of it. AMD fell 9.29% intraday, and Micron fell 3.95%. The whiplash itself is a late-cycle tell. Corrections inside expansions are orderly; this isn't fully orderly.

Which Warning Signs Back the Two-Year Pattern?

Cycle tops usually show up first in memory, and Micron's numbers are extreme. The company reported non-GAAP gross margin of 87.0% in fiscal Q4 2026, versus 45.7% a year earlier, on revenue up 379.3% year over year, according to its earnings release filed with the SEC. Numbers like that don't persist in a normal market — and the valuation says investors know it. The stock trades at 11 times trailing earnings and just 4 times forward earnings. Memory stocks carry multiples that low only when the market doubts peak profits will last.

Micron's own CFO, Mark Murphy, acknowledged the ceiling on the earnings call: "eventually price increases would moderate."

Other late-cycle tells are stacking up:

• AMD's inventory rose to $11.46 billion, up 35% sequentially.
• DRAM's share of Applied Materials' Semiconductor Systems revenue climbed to 33% from 28% — a sign memory makers are spending heavily on capacity.
• Broadcom's own filings flag "cyclicality in the semiconductor industry undergoing profound change due to AI" as a risk.

Put together, those four data points describe a classic setup: customers over-ordering, suppliers building capacity, and margins so rich that mean reversion is arithmetic, not opinion.

Why Could This Cycle Run Longer Than the Chart Suggests?

The case against a clean repeat rests on contracts and supply limits. This is where 2026 genuinely differs from 2020, 2022, and 2024.

Micron said more than 75% of fiscal 2027 shipments are already committed, and that it has "no line of sight to when supply and demand balance." That's not a market hoping demand holds. That's sold-out capacity with signed agreements behind it.

The demand-side numbers back it up. Broadcom forecast fiscal Q4 AI semiconductor revenue of $21.7 billion, up 236% year over year. AMD CEO Lisa Su put it in four words: "Demand is higher than supply." TSMC's October revenue rose 59.7% year over year. NVIDIA guided fiscal Q3 2027 revenue to $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%.

Borgeat's chart fairly describes how chip stocks trade. They top on expectations while earnings are still rising, and that is the setup today. What sets this cycle apart is that order books are contracted years out. That raises the bar for the fundamental downturn that normally follows a price top.

What Should Chip Holders Track Now?

The cycle turns only when the hard data turns, and that shows up in four measurable places:

• Memory pricing. Micron said HBM pricing increased significantly for calendar year 2027. Price cuts would be the clearest sign of a top.
• Inventory conversion. AMD needs its inventory build to turn into revenue near its Q4 guide of about $17 billion, plus or minus 3%.
• Equipment demand. Applied Materials forecast fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $11.10 billion, plus or minus $500 million. A cut would point to capex digestion.
• TSMC monthly sales. These are the quickest public read on AI chip demand. A string of sequential declines would back Borgeat's ovals.

Expect the volatility to continue either way. If all four indicators hold up, the latest drop looks like another valuation correction within an expansion that keeps going. If two or more crack, Borgeat's two-year cycle is playing out again — and the harder question for investors becomes not whether, but when to step aside.