Semiconductor stocks look to be making a comeback from lows in April and have led the S&P 500 so far this month with double-digit gains.

ARM gained 3% in morning trading; Intel up 2.7%; TSMC, Nvidia and Qualcomm up 1%.

Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday that semiconductor stocks make up 12% of the S&P 500 and could ultimately replicate the energy sector in its heyday, when energy made up about 30% of the U.S. stock-market index's market cap in 1980. Nvidia and Broadcom Inc. $(AVGO)$, he noted, make up three-quarters of the semiconductor group's market value.

With hyperscalers, cloud-services providers, and sovereigns all showing strong demand for AI, Reitzes said he believes the chip sector could "broaden out beyond" Nvidia and Broadcom. Melius recently added Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $(AMD)$ to its list of recommended semiconductor stocks, saying it "has a lot more to go" as demand for AI inferencing, or the process of running AI models, continues to grow.

Earlier this month, analysts at Bernstein Research indicated that several large chip stocks are positioned for more gains. With the ramp of its Blackwell AI platform, Nvidia has quelled investor fears about demand for AI hardware, the analysts wrote in a client note. The company has an "enormous" opportunity in the data-center segment, according to Bernstein, which added that "material upside [is] still possible."

The Bernstein team was also positive about Broadcom's AI opportunity, which they believe "looks really strong into 2026" because of the AI inferencing boom. The Bernstein team expects Broadcom's trajectory to be sustained by "software, cash deployment, and superb margins [and free cash flow]." In the past month, Broadcom's shares have increased 14%.

Also on Wednesday, Micron Technology Inc. $(MU)$, which has been among the top performers in the S&P 500 this month, delivered an earnings beat for the May quarter. In the past month, Micron's shares have risen 30%.

The memory-chip maker reported record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $9.3 billion, topping expectations of $8.9 billion by analysts tracked by FactSet.

The quarter's revenue was "driven by all-time-high" sales of its dynamic random-access memory $(DRAM)$ chips, the company said, with a nearly 50% sequential increase in revenue for its high-bandwidth memory $(HBM)$ chips that it is a market leader in.

Micron said revenue from its data-center business more than doubled from the previous year, which Needham & Company analysts said in a Thursday note shows that the "AI demand environment remains healthy."

Richard Windsor, founder of research firm Radio Free Mobile, said in a note on Thursday that AI hardware and infrastructure is "where the real money will be made," and that the outlook for Nvidia, Micron and other chip companies "remains pretty good."

One way to invest easily and broadly in semiconductor stocks is to hold shares of the $13 billion iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX, which tracks the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX by holding all 30 stocks in the index. Like the index, the exchange-traded fund has a modified market-cap weighting, such that the top three stocks may not make up more than 12%,10% and 8%, respectively, when they are rebalanced quarterly. Together, AMD, Nvidia and Broadcom make up 24.3% of the SOXX portfolio.