Top-performing Nasdaq stocks are partying like they did near the peak of the dot-com bubble - maybe even harder

By Christine Idzelis

The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s ended badly for a key index of semiconductor stocks

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indexes scored fresh record highs Wednesday.

Semiconductor stocks have been on fire, helping to fuel the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index to a new all-time peak on Wednesday.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX, an exchange-traded fund that tracks an index of chip stocks, jumped 5% on Wednesday, FactSet data showed. That brought its massive gains so far this year to around 68%.

Stocks in the Nasdaq-100 Index NDX, comprised of the largest companies trading on the Nasdaq COMP, are surging in an extreme manner that in some cases has surpassed dramatic moves seen during the height of the dot-com bubble, according to Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG.

The 10 top-performing stocks in Nasdaq-100 over the last year have soared an average of 784%, "beating the average of 1999 as well as the year prior to the March 2000 peak," Krinsky said in a note Wednesday. "The issue in the dot-com bust of course was that fundamentals didn't support the price," with the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX losing 84% from 2000 to 2002, he said.

Chip stocks are among the strongest performers in the Nasdaq-100 over the past year, Krinsky found, as seen in the tickers listed in the table below comparing performance today with 1999. At the top of the recent list of strong performers is Sandisk (SNDK), a semiconductor company that has benefited from demand for its storage technologies amid the artificial-intelligence boom.

BTIG

The chart above also cites massive returns over the past year from Western Digital (WDC), Seagate Technology Holdings (STX), Micron Technology (MU), Intel (INTC), Lam Research (LRCX), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Marvell Technology (MRVL) and Applied Materials (AMAT).

Read: Why is AMD's stock up so much? 'The world has changed.'

While Krinsky didn't predict in his note the same massive bust for chip stocks that followed the bout of frenzied activity in 1999, he did sound the alarm about the risks of a steep decline following a parabolic run higher.

"While fundamentals are clearly better today, and we don't think we see anything like" the 84% plunge that the PHLX Semiconductor Index saw, the chip-stock gauge could tumble around 25% to 30%, he cautioned.

"Stocks often top on good news, and while we have clearly been too cautious on the group of late, today has all the makings of a swing high in semis given the string of good earnings combined with the positive news out of the Middle East," Krinsky wrote.

The U.S. stock market rallied on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 SPX, Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA all closing sharply higher. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq each closed at all-time highs.

"The question is if we do get a meaningful pullback in semis, can other parts of the market actually pick up the slack?" Krinsky noted.

-Christine Idzelis

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05-07-26 0630ET