Over the past week, overseas semiconductors saw continuous pullbacks amid tightening AI narratives, but multiple chip stocks staged a violent rebound overnight.
AMD and Applied Materials rose more than 13% and 11% respectively, Broadcom gained over 8%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 6.85%. However, AI leader Nvidia fell 4.22%, hitting its lowest close in nearly seven months. In Japan and South Korea, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics opened collectively higher. A-share semiconductors relatively stabilized and recovered, and against the backdrop of a strengthened self-controllability narrative, capital flowed back into the semiconductor equipment sector. As of November 9, the Semiconductor Equipment ETF China Merchants (561980) recorded two consecutive days of net inflows totaling 72 million yuan, with the latest scale at approximately 4.1 billion yuan. At today's open, multiple A-share semiconductor equipment ETFs surged collectively, showing strong rebound momentum.
Regarding the drivers of this rebound, Galaxy Securities noted that on one hand, the semiconductor equipment sector's valuation had already become low after prior adjustments; on the other hand, domestic memory manufacturers' capacity expansion has become an important driving factor pulling equipment makers' next round of shipments, while volatility in overseas AI narratives also highlights the certainty of the domestic supply chain.
On one hand, accelerated capacity expansion by the two major memory players continues to drive sustained high growth in semiconductor equipment orders. Currently, multiple memory projects including Yangtze Memory and ChangXin Memory are steadily advancing. According to Industrial Securities, Yangtze Memory has begun connecting production equipment at its Wuhan Fab 3 (FAB3), while ChangXin Memory plans to use over 13 billion yuan in raised funds for new technology R&D projects. Industrial Securities analyzed that as equipment move-in and production line construction continue to advance, the next round of equipment framework agreements and batch orders are expected to land soon. Combined with the possibility of upward revisions to subsequent capacity expansion plans, the second derivative of domestic equipment order growth is expected to continue trending upward.
On the other hand, with the overseas midterm election results in place, the certainty of the domestic supply chain has strengthened against the backdrop of tightening AI narratives. Industrial Securities believes that technology competition and semiconductor supply chain restrictions may have a certain continuity, and export controls on advanced process computing chips and semiconductor equipment face tightening risks. As the core of China's tech self-controllability, the semiconductor localization process is expected to accelerate. Combined with the tight supply of certain key overseas components, Guosheng Securities believes that equipment expansion demand is transmitting upstream. Longer procurement cycles for certain imported key components make stable delivery and supply chain security important motivations for equipment makers to bring in domestic suppliers. Currently, domestic equipment is moving from single-point breakthroughs to multi-process coverage, with volume production adoption and repeat orders deepening substitution. According to Hualong Securities, AMEC's ICP etching equipment Primo Angnova has been shipped to a leading domestic memory customer for certification; its tungsten series CVD-W, HAR-W, and ALD-W products have obtained large-volume orders and become standard equipment on memory customers' production lines. Piotech had cumulatively shipped over 4,400 reaction chambers as of October 29, with PE-ALD SiO2 and SiCO process equipment rapidly ramping up at advanced memory customers. Hwatsing Technology's 12-inch high-current ion implanters have been delivered in batches to leading wafer fabs and obtained repeat orders.
On the industry data front, driven by sustained increases in chip demand and prices, global semiconductor sales in September 2026 rose 146.8% year-on-year to $172.58 billion, with growth accelerating by 2.5 percentage points from the previous reading; Q3 rose 24.1% quarter-on-quarter to $517.7 billion. Global semiconductor equipment sales in Q2 2026 grew 22.6% year-on-year to $40.53 billion, with growth up 8.6 percentage points from Q1, also confirming the prosperity of equipment demand.
It is understood that the CSI Semiconductor Index tracked by the Semiconductor Equipment ETF China Merchants (561980) is currently one of the most comprehensive A-share indices covering the domestic computing power chain and semiconductor equipment. Its constituent stocks gather equipment and materials leaders including AMEC, Naura Technology, Piotech, and National Silicon Industry Group (80%), along with three computing chip and wafer manufacturing leaders Cambricon, Hygon Information, and SMIC (20%). The top ten holdings concentration reaches as high as 80%, comprehensively capturing the substitution dividends of domestic computing power and equipment leaders. MACD golden cross signals have formed, and these stocks are performing well!