u/Winter_Ad6784

I saw a post yesterday where someone noticed that if you have both Warrior Culture + Galactic Curators Civics then your entertainers get replaced with Duelist and Museum Curator which are combined into Historic Reenactor. I didn't think there would be many cases of this since Paradox usually doesn't like blocking content behind multiple DLC but it seems they make an exception for small cosmetics and localization because there's a lot more like that. Some are a little ambiguous which gets priority but I tried to sort them with the highest priority ones at the top of the list. You don't miss out on any bonuses if it overwrites a lower job its just a title change.

Original Job	Swap Weight	Civics Needed	Job Combination
Bureaucrat	500	Superstitious Beliefs + Death Cult	Spirit Medium + Death Priest = Corpse Reader
Bureaucrat	500	Fortune Enterprise + Corporate Death Cult	Fortune Teller + Extinction Manager = Corpse Broker
Bureaucrat	450	Fire Cult + Superstitious Beliefs	Fire Dancer + Spirit Medium = Fire Seer
Bureaucrat	450	Fire Cult + Aristocratic Elite	Fire Dancer + Noble = Pyromancer
Bureaucrat	450	Fire Cult + Death Cult	Fire Dancer + Death Priest = Cremator
Politician	27	Fire Cult + Aristocratic Elite + Superstitious Beliefs	Fire Oracle + Noble + High Astrologist = Blazing Harbinger
Politician	26	Fire Cult + Superstitious Beliefs	Fire Oracle + High Astrologist = Blazewright
Politician	26	Fire Cult + Exalted Priesthood	Fire Oracle + High Priest = Radiant Priest
Politician	26	Fire Cult + Aristocratic Elite	Fire Oracle + Noble = Pyrocrat
Politician	26	Fire Cult + Merchant Guilds	Fire Oracle + Merchant = Ashbroker
Politician	20	Aristocratic Elite + Technocracy	Noble + Science Director = Noble Scientist
Politician	20	Aristocratic Elite + Exalted Priesthood	Noble + High Priest = Sacred Noble
Politician	20	Merchant Guilds + Technocracy	Merchant + Science Director = Tech Visionary
Politician	20	Aristocratic Elite + Merchant Guilds	Noble + Merchant = Patrician
Entertainer	20	Warrior Culture + Storm Devotion	Duelist + Storm Dancer = Storm Duelist
Entertainer	20	Warrior Culture + Galactic Curators	Duelist + Museum Curator = Historic Reenactor
Artisan	10	Anglers + Masterful Crafters	Pearl Diver + Artificer = Pearl Crafter

I don't want to criticize but I think Fire Dancer + Death Priest = Cremator is a major miss when they could've done something related to volcano sacrifices.

Main story: today’s move is mostly a semi rebound ahead of Nvidia earnings, not a clean single-company catalyst. Wall Street is up with the Nasdaq leading as chip stocks bounce, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up about 2.9%. Yields eased a bit, but Fed minutes/rate-hike risk, oil/Iran inflation risk, and Nvidia’s after-close earnings are still the big macro drivers. Options are pricing about a 6.5% move in NVDA after earnings, equal to roughly a $355B market-cap swing, so this is still mainly Nvidia/AI positioning.

Nvidia (P/E: 45.9, forward P/E: 28.7) reports earnings after the close today. The fresh focus is data-center demand, gross margin, hyperscaler AI spending, China restrictions, and guidance. Analysts are looking for roughly $1.75-$1.78 EPS on about $79B revenue.

Analog Devices (P/E: 70.7) beat earnings this morning with fiscal Q2 revenue of $3.62B, up 37% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $3.09. Guidance also came in above estimates, but the stock fell anyway. ADI also officially announced the $1.5B Empower Semiconductor acquisition to expand AI/data-center power delivery.

Micron (P/E: 33.5) is still getting a memory-supply bid. The newer detail is that analysts are now putting numbers around the Samsung strike risk: Jefferies estimated a Samsung walkout from May 21 to June 7 could reduce global memory production by about 3%, which would support DRAM/HBM/NAND pricing.

Astera Labs (P/E: 165) surged after management comments at J.P. Morgan’s TMT conference. The fresh catalyst is stronger AI connectivity positioning: optical networking, the Scorpio X fabric-switch ramp, and support for Nvidia AI clusters through NVLink Fusion hardware.

Marvell (P/E: 60.9) got another fresh round of analyst support ahead of its May 27 earnings. Oppenheimer raised its target to $200 from $170, and Wells Fargo raised its target to $195 from $135, with the bullish case still centered on AI networking, custom ASICs, AWS Trainium, and interconnect demand.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	8.72%	7.46%	0.65%	1.95%
INTC	Intel	6.87%	4.81%	0.33%	0.99%
MU	Micron	9.58%	3.17%	0.30%	0.91%
MRVL	Marvell	6.10%	4.62%	0.28%	0.84%
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.94%	13.94%	0.27%	0.81%
LRCX	Lam Research	3.30%	6.74%	0.22%	0.67%
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.61%	4.49%	0.21%	0.62%
TER	Teradyne	2.84%	6.08%	0.17%	0.52%
MPWR	Monolithic Power Systems	3.63%	4.36%	0.16%	0.47%
ASML	ASML Holding	2.61%	6.04%	0.16%	0.47%
KLAC	KLA Corporation	3.23%	4.69%	0.15%	0.45%
AVGO	Broadcom	7.27%	2.08%	0.15%	0.45%
CRDO	Credo	1.60%	8.69%	0.14%	0.42%
NXPI	NXP Semiconductors	3.66%	3.74%	0.14%	0.41%
NVDA	Nvidia	7.04%	1.90%	0.13%	0.40%
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.88%	2.75%	0.11%	0.32%
ON	ON Semiconductor	2.43%	4.07%	0.10%	0.30%
ARM	Arm Holdings	0.55%	14.65%	0.08%	0.24%
RMBS	Rambus	0.76%	8.17%	0.06%	0.19%
TSM	TSMC	2.72%	2.24%	0.06%	0.18%
MTSI	MACOM	1.41%	3.51%	0.05%	0.15%
MCHP	Microchip Technology	2.85%	1.33%	0.04%	0.11%
STM	STMicroelectronics	0.72%	5.19%	0.04%	0.11%
NVMI	Nova	0.88%	3.99%	0.04%	0.11%
ENTG	Entegris	1.10%	1.98%	0.02%	0.07%
ASX	ASE Technology	0.93%	2.35%	0.02%	0.07%
SWKS	Skyworks Solutions	0.62%	3.03%	0.02%	0.06%
UMC	United Microelectronics	0.74%	-0.65%	0.00%	-0.01%
TXN	Texas Instruments	4.03%	-0.43%	-0.02%	-0.05%
ADI	Analog Devices	3.29%	-6.55%	-0.22%	-0.65%
Total	Sum of Weights and Impact Est.	99.91%	N/A	3.86%	11.58%
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	3.84%	3.84%	11.51%
SOXL	Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares	N/A	11.54%	N/A	11.54%

My Take: I often see in the aftermath of beating earnings expectations there's counterintuitively a drop in price (example: Analog Devices). I'm not going to pretend to understand this phenomenon, but with NVDA earnings tonight don't be surprised if they kick ass but the stock still sinks tomorrow. This is why I usually don't trade options, although I am tempted to buy a strangle right before close today for fun.

SOXL to $500 EOY

Main story: broad semi weakness is still mostly macro/positioning, not one company-specific blowup. Today’s pressure is coming from higher Treasury yields, inflation/oil/Iran concerns, and traders de-risking ahead of Nvidia earnings Wednesday. Fresh semi-specific stories are Samsung strike risk in memory, Google/Blackstone launching a TPU-based AI cloud venture, and Nvidia earnings/China access uncertainty.

Micron (P/E: 32.9) Samsung and its union are still negotiating ahead of a possible 18-day strike; the strike could threaten memory supply, meanwhile Mizuho raised Micron’s target to $800 on strong DRAM/NAND pricing and AI-server demand.

Intel (P/E: N/A) Intel and Qualcomm have shown early takeover interest in Tenstorrent, an AI-chip startup. Benchmark raised Intel’s target to $140.

Nvidia (P/E: 54.0) is still the main market catalyst. Wednesday earnings will test whether Nvidia can maintain AI dominance as inference competition rises. There is also fresh China uncertainty: Jensen Huang said he expects China to open over time, but there was no immediate H200 approval breakthrough from China.

Analog Devices (P/E: 76.0) ADI is in advanced talks to buy Empower Semiconductor for about $1.5B cash, which would push ADI further into AI power-management chips for AI processors and data centers.

ASML Holding (P/E: ~49.1) has fresh High-NA EUV news. ASML expects the first chips made with its next-gen High-NA machines within months; Intel, Samsung, and SK Hynix are moving ahead, while TSMC still sees the machines as too expensive for now.

AMD (P/E: 134.5) got fresh analyst support but is still trading with the broader high-expectation AI unwind. Citi raised AMD’s target to $460 from $358 while keeping a Neutral rating.

Qualcomm (P/E: 21.0) is part of the same Tenstorrent story as Intel. The relevance is strategic: Qualcomm may be looking for more AI/inference exposure beyond phones and edge devices.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
MU	Micron	9.35%	4.73%	0.44%	1.33%
MRVL	Marvell	5.85%	6.31%	0.37%	1.11%
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.71%	11.43%	0.20%	0.59%
INTC	Intel	6.71%	1.94%	0.13%	0.39%
CRDO	Credo	1.48%	6.11%	0.09%	0.27%
NXPI	NXP Semiconductors	3.64%	1.52%	0.06%	0.17%
UMC	United Microelectronics	0.72%	4.35%	0.03%	0.09%
TXN	Texas Instruments	4.01%	0.63%	0.03%	0.08%
NVDA	Nvidia	7.10%	0.35%	0.02%	0.07%
ARM	Arm Holdings	0.54%	3.04%	0.02%	0.05%
SWKS	Skyworks Solutions	0.62%	1.72%	0.01%	0.03%
ADI	Analog Devices	3.33%	0.29%	0.01%	0.03%
STM	STMicroelectronics	0.72%	1.28%	0.01%	0.03%
TER	Teradyne	2.84%	0.26%	0.01%	0.02%
MTSI	MACOM	1.40%	0.32%	0.00%	0.01%
TSM	TSMC	2.74%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
MCHP	Microchip Technology	2.88%	-0.01%	0.00%	0.00%
RMBS	Rambus	0.77%	-0.61%	0.00%	-0.01%
KLAC	KLA Corporation	3.26%	-0.20%	-0.01%	-0.02%
ASML	ASML Holding	2.63%	-0.30%	-0.01%	-0.02%
ENTG	Entegris	1.12%	-1.36%	-0.02%	-0.05%
ASX	ASE Technology	0.95%	-2.13%	-0.02%	-0.06%
NVMI	Nova	0.91%	-2.35%	-0.02%	-0.06%
LRCX	Lam Research	3.36%	-0.89%	-0.03%	-0.09%
ON	ON Semiconductor	2.51%	-1.28%	-0.03%	-0.10%
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.69%	-0.71%	-0.03%	-0.10%
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	8.87%	-0.58%	-0.05%	-0.15%
MPWR	Monolithic Power Systems	3.68%	-1.84%	-0.07%	-0.20%
AVGO	Broadcom	7.45%	-1.63%	-0.12%	-0.36%
QCOM	Qualcomm	4.05%	-3.07%	-0.12%	-0.37%
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	0.95%	0.95%	2.84%
SOXL	Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares	N/A	2.50%	N/A	2.50%

My Take: SOXL really dug itself out of hole just in time for the post lmao. While I post trailing P/E just because it's the standard it's worth noting ahead of NVDA earnings that their forward P/E is only ~25 right now leaving a lot of room to grow, which may sound weird to say for the largest company in the world but the fact is plenty of the other Trillion dollar companies have higher P/E's notably Walmart at 45 and Tesla at 190, which would easily justify the 50% growth needed to reach my infamous price target:

SOXL to $500 EOY

Hello, I'm the guy that's been posting the "Why is SOXL up/down today?" posts for the past couple weeks, and at the end of every single one I include the same short message "SOXL to $500 EOY". Understandably this has garnered attention in the comments many times so I'm making this post for future posts to link to so I don't have to explain myself each time. I don't expect everyone to come away from this agreeing with me, just not having to ask why I think it and *maybe* not think I'm a complete goddamn nutjob for thinking it.

First, a little math. At the time of writing SOXL sits at ~$150. To reach $500 that would be about +236%. The value of SOXL is essentially derived from 3Xing the daily movement of SOXX (technically SOXX and SOXL both follow the NYSE Semiconductor Index, but for the most part they are in alignment). Because it is 3x leveraged, you might think that would mean SOXX has to go up 80% but actually, just as leverage tends to depreciate, it also compounds. If SOXX goes up 1% a day for 41 days it would be up (1.01^41)-1=+50%, but SOXL would go up (1.03^41)-1=+236% so SOXX would actually only need to go up about +50%. That alone should make the whole thing seem a lot more realistic, and also explain why SOXL can comfortably be up so much from $10.

Secondly, I have to say that it has nothing to do with cycles. I try to be respectful to everyone but this type of pattern or shape finding investing philosophy seems silly outside of day trading. Any supposed cycle should at least be derived from the SOXX chart but the main patterns people refer to don't really exist there. Although with SOXL being a leveraged index it's often not obvious what the price is actually derived from. That's why I started the daily posts, to give people something to go off of beyond that which to me looked like reading tea leaves. Now on any given day you can see exactly what stocks are pulling SOXL up or down, and what the relevant news stories are to that effect. Although I'm not unbiased I try to just relay the numbers and the news and save my stupid takes on the news for the end if anyone cares for my analysis.

So what is my analysis or investing philosophy?

Secular growth. AI demands semiconductors. The better AI gets, the more value semiconductors can provide, the more demand there will be. I don't know or care who's going to win the AI war. I don't know who's going to win out in the semiconductor industry. What I am pretty freaking confident of is that the industry is going to win, so I don't bet on any of the players; I bet on the house, because the house always wins.

This is contingent on AI not being a bubble. If it's a bubble then show me the air. Like in the dot-com bubble there was a shitload of companies getting valued with no income or profits or real business model (example: Enron) or in the real estate bubble there was a bunch of mortgages being given to people with no way of paying them. Where's the bubble for AI? Anthropic is cash flow positive. OpenAI is making tons of money too. Their cash flow is a little ambiguous but it seems mainly to be based on consumer subscriptions with growing industrial subscriptions. I could potentially see a scenario where industry fails to see any value and drop subscriptions, but that seems more speculative than just about anything I'm including here. I can't imagine the consumers dropping subscriptions en masse, once you get consumers on a subscription they tend to keep it or move to a similar service.

Okay so maybe you don't think AI is a bubble per se but you think it's going to hit a wall or not be very useful. After all with SOXL being leveraged the value can't just stagnate it has to keep going up. Well I'm a software developer and it's already making my job much easier. It can easily program in proprietary languages that I'm pretty confident don't appear in its training data. Even at its current level of intelligence there's tons of industry value to be extracted from it that there just hasn't been the time to set up yet, because a couple years ago it could maybe write a function or a class but now it can do a couple days of work easily. That's deep mostly untapped value.

But I don't think it's even going to stop here. All trends point to it getting much better very fast. A common retort is that meme of the guy saying "My 3-month-old son is now TWICE as big as when he was born. He's on track to weigh 7.5 trillion pounds by age 10" with the idea being that the trend is too early to call exponential or that the exponential trend is going to hit a wall at some point. Well this has been going on for some time now, METR published the claim that AI task time horizons double every ~7 months almost exactly 14 months ago now, or 2 doublings. So where are we at on that?

First let's go back to the baby. You can work out that the baby's weight at birth was 7500000000000*(1/(2^(12*10/3))) = 6.82 pounds. At the time of the post the baby was 3 months old and 13.64 pounds. If the joke prediction were correct then 6 months later, 2 predicted doublings, the baby would weigh 4x as much or 54.56 pounds at 9 months old, which is basically impossible and such a baby would be studied extensively for science.

Back to the AI time horizon. Back in March 2025 METR's frontier estimate was that AI could complete programming tasks up to 50 minutes long, with the record being held by Claude 3.7 Sonnet. Now the record is held by Claude Mythos, but they aren't entirely sure what the time horizon is as it's getting hard to build accurate tasks that take so long, but they do say that it is "likely at least 16 hrs". So it turns out METR was actually wrong. Since their observation 14 months ago AI's ability to do long tasks has not increased 4x, it has increased 16x. They have observed that the doubling time has accelerated to ~4 months instead of the original ~7 months. If the 9-month-old baby grew at that rate from 3 months it would weigh 218.28 pounds. That baby wouldn't just be studied, it would need to be abducted by the SCP Foundation.

Looking beyond 2026, if we achieve AGI like everyone in the industry is aiming for, then $500 is just the beginning. A humanoid robot with AGI can do literally anything a human can do. I don't know what the economy looks like with that but it is clearly valuable.

With all that being said I could totally be wrong. Even if my entire thought process is generally correct, it could still just stagnate for the time being or even go up but only to $350, or other political/macroeconomic factors hurt the economy broadly and SOXL is just hit in the crossfire. Or maybe my thought process is wrong and AI adoption stagnates or drops, or AI takes off but chips just don't become more valuable for one reason or another. Hell, I could be basically proven wrong by tomorrow afternoon if Nvidia underperforms earnings. There are certainly a lot of paths to failure. But I plan on keeping the "SOXL to $500 by EOY" line in there even if it does end up looking hopeless later on because I believe in keeping myself accountable, and also because it would be funny.

SOXL to $500 by EOY

Main story: broad semi selloff driven by macro pressure, not one company-specific blowup. The fresh broad-market issue is still rates, oil, inflation, and Iran-war uncertainty. This morning brought some relief as yields and oil pulled back, but tech was still one of the weaker groups. Friday’s market was hit after Trump left China with no major trade breakthrough and no tangible China help on ending the Iran war. Nvidia earnings on Wednesday could be very important to the market overall.

Analog Devices (P/E: 77.0) is one of the few green names. Fresh coverage over the weekend framed ADI as benefiting from AI data-center power, optics, and test exposure ahead of its May 21 earnings. That helps explain why ADI is holding up better than most of the group today.

Intel (P/E: N/A) has fresh analyst support, but the stock is still weak. Citi reportedly raised its Intel target to $130 from $95, and Benchmark raised its target to $140 from $105, but Barron’s said the stock was still on track for a fourth straight down day after a massive AI-driven run.

Lam Research (P/E: 51.8) actually had positive fresh news. Morgan Stanley upgraded LRCX to Overweight, citing improved NAND forecasts, shipment outperformance, margin expansion drivers, and positioning in DRAM/packaging transitions. The stock is still down because the whole equipment group is getting hit.

Nvidia (P/E: 54.6) has fresh bullish analyst commentary ahead of earnings Wednesday. KeyBanc and D.A. Davidson reportedly raised their Nvidia targets to $300, citing Blackwell/Rubin demand and Nvidia’s supply-chain positioning. Nvidia earnings on Wednesday is the next major catalyst for the AI chip trade.

AMD (P/E: 136.7) also got a fresh Citi target hike to $460 from $358, but it is still trading down with the broader AI/CPU semi unwind. The same Barron’s piece tied AMD, Intel, and Arm to the AI CPU/server growth trade, but today the market is selling high-expectation chip names anyway.

Applied Materials (P/E: 42.5) has the cleanest fresh negative company-specific item. Morgan Stanley downgraded AMAT to Equal-weight, saying 2027 growth looks more in line with the market, China share concerns remain, and the valuation discount may not narrow near term. That makes AMAT’s drop look partly company-specific, not just sector selling.

Micron (P/E: 33.1) is tied to the fresh Samsung strike update. Samsung and its union are extending talks to avoid a major strike that could disrupt memory-chip supply chains. A court also partially limited strike actions, which reduced the worst-case disruption risk, but the strike threat is still relevant for memory names. MU being the largest SOXX holding makes even a modest drop a major SOXL drag.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
ADI	Analog Devices	3.18%	0.44%	0.01%	0.04%
SWKS	Skyworks Solutions	0.55%	0.65%	0.00%	0.01%
ARM	Arm Holdings	0.53%	-0.31%	0.00%	0.00%
UMC	United Microelectronics	0.67%	-1.44%	-0.01%	-0.03%
STM	STMicroelectronics	0.71%	-1.74%	-0.01%	-0.04%
NXPI	NXP Semiconductors	3.43%	-0.48%	-0.02%	-0.05%
TXN	Texas Instruments	3.85%	-0.85%	-0.03%	-0.10%
RMBS	Rambus	0.76%	-4.42%	-0.03%	-0.10%
MCHP	Microchip Technology	2.82%	-1.28%	-0.04%	-0.11%
ENTG	Entegris	1.15%	-3.14%	-0.04%	-0.11%
NVMI	Nova	0.97%	-4.62%	-0.04%	-0.13%
MTSI	MACOM	1.41%	-4.58%	-0.06%	-0.19%
ASML	ASML Holding	2.65%	-2.45%	-0.06%	-0.19%
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.72%	-1.78%	-0.07%	-0.20%
ASX	ASE Technology	0.99%	-6.94%	-0.07%	-0.21%
TSM	TSMC	2.71%	-2.60%	-0.07%	-0.21%
KLAC	KLA Corporation	3.29%	-3.02%	-0.10%	-0.30%
ON	ON Semiconductor	2.54%	-4.13%	-0.10%	-0.31%
LRCX	Lam Research	3.39%	-3.11%	-0.11%	-0.32%
AVGO	Broadcom	7.29%	-1.76%	-0.13%	-0.39%
TER	Teradyne	2.95%	-4.77%	-0.14%	-0.42%
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.70%	-8.55%	-0.15%	-0.44%
NVDA	Nvidia	7.05%	-2.07%	-0.15%	-0.44%
MPWR	Monolithic Power Systems	3.74%	-3.95%	-0.15%	-0.44%
CRDO	Credo	1.63%	-10.48%	-0.17%	-0.51%
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	8.88%	-2.12%	-0.19%	-0.56%
INTC	Intel	6.73%	-2.95%	-0.20%	-0.60%
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.68%	-5.83%	-0.27%	-0.82%
MRVL	Marvell	5.92%	-5.38%	-0.32%	-0.96%
MU	Micron	9.97%	-5.33%	-0.53%	-1.59%
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	-3.14%	-3.14%	-9.43%
SOXL	Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares	N/A	-9.78%	N/A	-9.78%

My Take: When overall SOXX news is positive and overall market news is negative and there's a red day, that obviously isn't good but I'm not too worried. Not every day can be green, not every month can be April. More than likely this will look like a slight divot in the overall bull market. On the off chance there were a recession caused by the broad market forces driving the market down today then I'm confident all of these companies would do fine.

SOXL to $500 EOY

I’m volunteering with habitat for humanity today so this is gonna be pretty bootleg doing it from my phone.

Trump’s vacation to China ended without much news. Selloff likely due to unease about a potential bubble and profit taking. Don’t see much news regardless.

Ticker
Company
SOXX weight
Today
Est. SOXX impact
Est. SOXL impact
ALAB
Astera Labs
1.56%
+0.88%
+0.01 pp
+0.04 pp
QCOM
Qualcomm
4.02%
+0.31%
+0.01 pp
+0.04 pp
UMC
United Microelectronics
0.65%
+0.88%
+0.01 pp
+0.02 pp
SWKS
Skyworks Solutions
0.56%
+0.19%
+0.00 pp
+0.00 pp
MTSI
MACOM
1.37%
-0.69%
-0.01 pp
-0.03 pp
RMBS
Rambus
0.78%
-2.02%
-0.02 pp
-0.05 pp
AMAT
Applied Materials
4.70%
-0.47%
-0.02 pp
-0.07 pp
NXPI
NXP Semiconductors
3.52%
-0.65%
-0.02 pp
-0.07 pp
ASX
ASE Technology
0.99%
-2.67%
-0.03 pp
-0.08 pp
TXN
Texas Instruments
3.78%
-0.76%
-0.03 pp
-0.09 pp
STM
STMicroelectronics
0.66%
-4.40%
-0.03 pp
-0.09 pp
ARM
Arm Holdings
0.50%
-6.61%
-0.03 pp
-0.10 pp
NVMI
Nova
0.88%
-5.48%
-0.05 pp
-0.14 pp
ADI
Analog Devices
3.21%
-1.60%
-0.05 pp
-0.15 pp
ENTG
Entegris
1.23%
-4.28%
-0.05 pp
-0.16 pp
MCHP
Microchip Technology
2.91%
-2.50%
-0.07 pp
-0.22 pp
TSM
TSMC
2.65%
-2.77%
-0.07 pp
-0.22 pp
MRVL
Marvell
5.47%
-1.48%
-0.08 pp
-0.24 pp
CRDO
Credo
1.80%
-4.52%
-0.08 pp
-0.24 pp
ON
ON Semiconductor
2.29%
-3.61%
-0.08 pp
-0.25 pp
KLAC
KLA
3.23%
-2.95%
-0.10 pp
-0.29 pp
TER
Teradyne
3.05%
-3.44%
-0.10 pp
-0.31 pp
ASML
ASML Holding
2.62%
-4.23%
-0.11 pp
-0.33 pp
MPWR
Monolithic Power Systems
3.81%
-3.00%
-0.11 pp
-0.34 pp
LRCX
Lam Research
3.36%
-4.33%
-0.15 pp
-0.44 pp
AVGO
Broadcom
7.14%
-2.86%
-0.20 pp
-0.61 pp
NVDA
Nvidia
6.78%
-3.27%
-0.22 pp
-0.66 pp
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
9.08%
-3.57%
-0.32 pp
-0.97 pp
INTC
Intel
7.19%
-5.94%
-0.43 pp
-1.28 pp
MU
Micron
10.11%
-5.13%
-0.52 pp
-1.56 pp
SOXX
iShares Semiconductor ETF
100.00%
-2.92%
-2.92 pp
-8.76 pp
SOXL
Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares
-8.73%
-8.73 pp actual

Frankly I don’t see where the bubble could be. Anthropic’s Earnings are real and it’s hard to imagine people spending money on Claude and chatgpt suddenly deciding all at once they don’t need it without just moving to another AI with the same computing needs.

SOXL to $500 EOY

• Main story: broad semi selloff, not one company-specific blowup. SOXL is getting hit hard because SOXX is broadly red today. The biggest drags are Micron, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Marvell, Broadcom, Applied Materials, and Monolithic Power.
• Inflation is the broad-market trigger. April CPI came in at 3.8% year over year, above the 3.7% Reuters economist estimate. That pushed yields higher and pressured high-valuation growth/AI names.
• Laptop numbers are adding pressure to PC-exposed semis. KeyBanc reportedly said April notebook shipments fell 27% month over month, which is a negative read-through for Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and other PC-exposed chip names.
• Micron (PE: 34.4) is the largest drag. MU is down about 8.6%, and because it is the largest SOXX holding, that alone is dragging SOXL by roughly 2.5 percentage points. I don’t see a clean negative Micron-specific headline; this looks more like profit-taking after the AI-memory run.
• Nvidia (PE: 53.4) is the lightest drag with Susquehanna raising NVDA’s target from $250 to $275, citing strong data-center performance from GB300 servers. Citi raised its target to $300, citing strong AI demand.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
MU	Micron	9.77%	-8.59%	-0.84 pp	-2.52 pp
INTC	Intel	7.39%	-8.74%	-0.65 pp	-1.94 pp
QCOM	Qualcomm	4.15%	-13.13%	-0.54 pp	-1.63 pp
AMD	AMD	9.15%	-4.96%	-0.45 pp	-1.36 pp
MRVL	Marvell	5.62%	-5.99%	-0.34 pp	-1.01 pp
AVGO	Broadcom	7.26%	-3.65%	-0.26 pp	-0.79 pp
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.71%	-5.40%	-0.25 pp	-0.76 pp
MPWR	Monolithic Power	3.78%	-6.37%	-0.24 pp	-0.72 pp
TER	Teradyne	3.03%	-6.32%	-0.19 pp	-0.57 pp
LRCX	Lam Research	3.39%	-5.47%	-0.19 pp	-0.56 pp
CRDO	Credo	1.70%	-10.32%	-0.18 pp	-0.53 pp
ON	ON Semi	2.26%	-7.38%	-0.17 pp	-0.50 pp
KLAC	KLA	3.31%	-5.04%	-0.17 pp	-0.50 pp
NXPI	NXP Semiconductors	3.50%	-4.41%	-0.15 pp	-0.46 pp
ASML	ASML	2.72%	-5.13%	-0.14 pp	-0.42 pp
MCHP	Microchip	2.93%	-3.93%	-0.12 pp	-0.35 pp
TXN	Texas Instruments	3.66%	-3.00%	-0.11 pp	-0.33 pp
TSM	TSMC	2.72%	-3.67%	-0.10 pp	-0.30 pp
ADI	Analog Devices	3.16%	-2.87%	-0.09 pp	-0.27 pp
MTSI	MACOM	1.35%	-6.23%	-0.08 pp	-0.25 pp
NVMI	Nova	0.92%	-8.78%	-0.08 pp	-0.24 pp
ENTG	Entegris	1.26%	-6.34%	-0.08 pp	-0.24 pp
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.51%	-5.10%	-0.08 pp	-0.23 pp
RMBS	Rambus	0.77%	-8.22%	-0.06 pp	-0.19 pp
ASX	ASE Tech	0.98%	-5.82%	-0.06 pp	-0.17 pp
NVDA	Nvidia	6.55%	-0.80%	-0.05 pp	-0.16 pp
STM	STMicro	0.67%	-6.85%	-0.05 pp	-0.14 pp
SWKS	Skyworks	0.56%	-7.43%	-0.04 pp	-0.12 pp
ARM	Arm	0.51%	-3.91%	-0.02 pp	-0.06 pp
UMC	United Micro	0.62%	+0.51%	+0.00 pp	+0.01 pp
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	-5.84%	-5.84 pp	-17.52 pp
SOXL	Direxion 3x Semi Bull ETF		-17.58%		-17.58 pp actual

My take: Without a catalyst specific to semiconductors my thesis remains unchanged, the fundamentals are the same so this looks more like a bull flag/profit taking. It is true if the whole economy get blown up by broad political circumstances SOXL could be among the worst hit, but I don't think mildly poor inflation numbers are the point of no return in that regard. Worst case: Iran manages to maintain power and hold out. Trump doesn't figure Iran out by midterms but still holds the senate allowing him to continue. Energy and Fuel stay expensive which isn't good but it's not going to kill AI research, and it will help my side investment in ENLT anyways.

SOXL to 500$ EOY

• Main story: concentrated gains, not a broad semi rally. Most SOXX holdings are moving sideways today. The movement is being driven mainly by five names: Micron, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Credo, and AMD.
• Micron (PE: 37.0) is the largest driver. MU is benefiting from the AI memory squeeze plus Samsung labor-strike concerns, which could tighten DRAM/HBM supply further.
• Qualcomm (PE: 25.8) is the second-biggest driver. QCOM is still being repriced as more than a handset stock. Daiwa upgraded it to Outperform last week, citing future opportunities in data-center CPUs, physical computing, and edge AI.
• Nvidia (PE: 54.2) is contributing despite a modest move. NVDA’s weight makes even a ~3% move meaningful for SOXX/SOXL. The relevant setup is the market positioning ahead of its May 20 earnings. You can read my thoughts on upcoming earnings at the end of this post.
• Credo (PE: 112.2) is the high-beta AI infrastructure mover. CRDO has a small SOXX weight, but its large price move makes it one of the top contributors. They are big into datacenter infrastructure and managing massive amounts of data. There's nothing new on them as far as I could find, just volatile speculation.
• AMD (PE: 152.3) has been upgraded to Buy and had it price target raised to $450 by Goldman Sachs. Their in day graph appear to mainly just be following SOXX though.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
MU	Micron	8.96%	+6.27%	+0.56 pp	+1.69 pp
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.75%	+6.23%	+0.23 pp	+0.70 pp
AMD	AMD	8.70%	+2.04%	+0.18 pp	+0.53 pp
NVDA	Nvidia	6.50%	+2.68%	+0.17 pp	+0.52 pp
CRDO	Credo	1.84%	+9.00%	+0.17 pp	+0.50 pp
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.76%	+2.39%	+0.11 pp	+0.34 pp
INTC	Intel	6.86%	+1.46%	+0.10 pp	+0.30 pp
MPWR	Monolithic Power	4.01%	+2.10%	+0.08 pp	+0.25 pp
TXN	Texas Instruments	3.78%	+1.96%	+0.07 pp	+0.22 pp
NXPI	NXP Semiconductors	3.70%	+1.33%	+0.05 pp	+0.15 pp
ON	ON Semi	2.37%	+2.06%	+0.05 pp	+0.15 pp
TER	Teradyne	3.31%	+1.31%	+0.04 pp	+0.13 pp
LRCX	Lam Research	3.52%	+0.90%	+0.03 pp	+0.09 pp
MRVL	Marvell	5.84%	+0.49%	+0.03 pp	+0.09 pp
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.57%	+1.59%	+0.02 pp	+0.07 pp
ASX	ASE Tech	1.01%	+1.96%	+0.02 pp	+0.06 pp
KLAC	KLA	3.30%	+0.46%	+0.02 pp	+0.05 pp
RMBS	Rambus	0.77%	+1.94%	+0.01 pp	+0.04 pp
SWKS	Skyworks	0.56%	+2.35%	+0.01 pp	+0.04 pp
UMC	United Micro	0.62%	+0.52%	+0.00 pp	+0.01 pp
STM	STMicro	0.67%	+0.42%	+0.00 pp	+0.01 pp
ADI	Analog Devices	3.24%	+0.06%	+0.00 pp	+0.01 pp
MTSI	MACOM	1.36%	-0.12%	-0.00 pp	-0.00 pp
NVMI	Nova	0.95%	-0.25%	-0.00 pp	-0.01 pp
ARM	Arm	0.51%	-1.44%	-0.01 pp	-0.02 pp
ENTG	Entegris	1.31%	-0.66%	-0.01 pp	-0.03 pp
AVGO	Broadcom	7.38%	-0.46%	-0.03 pp	-0.10 pp
TSM	TSMC	2.85%	-1.86%	-0.05 pp	-0.16 pp
MCHP	Microchip	3.13%	-1.88%	-0.06 pp	-0.18 pp
ASML	ASML	2.71%	-2.89%	-0.08 pp	-0.23 pp
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	+1.82%	+1.82 pp	+5.45 pp
SOXL	Direxion 3x Semi Bull ETF		+5.86%		+5.86 pp actual

If you're concerned about the Iran war, while energy and gas prices do have broad implications for the economy, higher energy costs doesn't necessarily hurt semiconductor demand directly. You can increase energy efficiency by undervolting the chips, for a mild cost in compute power. Also it seems the American economy and semiconductors in particular are strong enough to just eat the cost. That being said Iran is going to want to empty their oil reserves soon as shutting down pumps would be very expensive. Worst case they'll thread the needle and continue standing in a much weaker economic position as their oil economy faulters. Either way Trump is going to have to either win or fold before the midterms. That's why oil futures are high but not too expensive. It's certainly worth keeping an eye on though.

SOXL to 500$ EOY

• Main story: post-pullback rally in semis. The biggest SOXL drivers are Micron, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom. The rally is broad.
• Micron is the largest driver. The memory trade is ripping because AI/data-center demand is tightening DRAM/NAND supply. DRAM contract prices expected to rise 58%–63% QoQ in Q2, with NAND up 70%–75%, as AI server demand keeps supply tight.
• AMD remains a major AI/data-center read-through. AMD’s recent Q1 report showed strong AI/data-center momentum, with data-center revenue up 57% YoY, helping support the broader chip rally.
• Qualcomm is one of today’s biggest positive contributors. Daiwa upgraded QCOM to Outperform and raised its price target to $225, with the bull case centered on Qualcomm’s data-center AI pivot and valuation discount to other AI chip names.
• Intel is also a major contributor. I’m not seeing a clean new Intel-specific catalyst since yesterday noon, so this looks more like broad AI/semi momentum plus residual optimism from Apple reportedly exploring U.S. chipmaking alternatives with Intel and Samsung.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
MU	Micron	9.03%	+13.39%	+1.21 pp	+3.63 pp
AMD	AMD	7.70%	+8.78%	+0.68 pp	+2.03 pp
INTC	Intel	6.90%	+7.06%	+0.49 pp	+1.46 pp
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.81%	+9.66%	+0.37 pp	+1.10 pp
AVGO	Broadcom	7.78%	+4.39%	+0.34 pp	+1.02 pp
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.79%	+6.00%	+0.29 pp	+0.86 pp
MRVL	Marvell	6.01%	+3.71%	+0.22 pp	+0.67 pp
KLAC	KLA	3.31%	+5.37%	+0.18 pp	+0.53 pp
NVDA	Nvidia	6.45%	+1.92%	+0.12 pp	+0.37 pp
LRCX	Lam Research	3.43%	+2.42%	+0.08 pp	+0.25 pp
TXN	Texas Instruments	3.85%	+1.81%	+0.07 pp	+0.21 pp
ADI	Analog Devices	3.31%	+1.98%	+0.07 pp	+0.20 pp
ASML	ASML	2.65%	+1.98%	+0.05 pp	+0.16 pp
TER	Teradyne	3.24%	+1.62%	+0.05 pp	+0.16 pp
MPWR	Monolithic Power	4.04%	+1.26%	+0.05 pp	+0.15 pp
NXPI	NXP	3.74%	+1.24%	+0.05 pp	+0.14 pp
MTSI	MACOM	1.22%	+2.70%	+0.03 pp	+0.10 pp
STM	STMicroelectronics	0.69%	+4.71%	+0.03 pp	+0.10 pp
ON	onsemi	2.42%	+1.20%	+0.03 pp	+0.09 pp
NVMI	Nova	0.99%	+2.16%	+0.02 pp	+0.06 pp
RMBS	Rambus	0.76%	+2.38%	+0.02 pp	+0.05 pp
ENTG	Entegris	1.35%	+1.26%	+0.02 pp	+0.05 pp
SWKS	Skyworks	0.65%	+2.30%	+0.01 pp	+0.04 pp
ASX	ASE Tech	1.03%	+1.16%	+0.01 pp	+0.04 pp
ARM	Arm	0.53%	+0.50%	+0.00 pp	+0.01 pp
UMC	UMC	0.60%	-0.07%	-0.00 pp	-0.00 pp
TSM	TSMC ADR	2.81%	-0.32%	-0.01 pp	-0.03 pp
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.76%	-1.35%	-0.02 pp	-0.07 pp
CRDO	Credo	1.88%	-1.66%	-0.03 pp	-0.09 pp
MCHP	Microchip	3.14%	-3.22%	-0.10 pp	-0.30 pp
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	+4.43%	+4.43 pp	+13.07%

Worth noting early: NVDA Earnings call scheduled for 5/20. NVDA currently has a PE ratio of ~43. If they meet expectations this would drop to ~36 at current price, and continue to drop to ~30 if they hold this in future quarters. My spin: NVDA has a relatively low PE (emphasis on relatively, historically a PE of 25 was considered upper end of healthy but TSLA has comfortably held a PE of 400 for years). AI datacenter spending (the main factor in NVDA earnings) at large doesn't appear to be slowing down. Earning will hold steady and prices will rise with renewed confidence from earnings keeping NVDA's PE in the 40's or even 50's and valuation of the rest of the industry will follow.

SOXL to 500$ EOY

• Main story: looks like a bull flag / post-rally pullback. Semis are retreating after the sharp AMD-led rally. Marvell and Teradyne are among the biggest weighted drags, but I don’t see a clean new company-specific negative catalyst for either; they look like high-beta giveback after the AI/semi run.
• Qualcomm is the big positive offset. QCOM is up sharply as traders reprice its AI/data-center and “Physical AI” story, with attention moving beyond handsets toward hyperscaler AI opportunities.
• AMD is now a drag after being yesterday’s main rally driver. Likely from people taking profits. The prior catalyst is still AMD’s strong Q1: data-center revenue was $5.8B, +57% YoY, but today it is giving some back.
• Astera is another high-beta profit-taking drag. ALAB is down hard despite reporting Q1 revenue of $308.4M, +93% YoY.
• MACOM is a positive exception. MTSI beat fiscal Q2 estimates and guided Q3 above consensus.
• ARM is a sentiment drag, but still not a major direct-weight drag. ARM is down on smartphone weakness and AI-chip supply concerns, but its SOXX weight is small.

Ticker	Company	SOXX weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
MRVL	Marvell	6.09%	-6.28%	-0.38 pp	-1.15 pp
AMD	AMD	7.73%	-3.76%	-0.29 pp	-0.87 pp
MU	Micron	8.49%	-3.17%	-0.27 pp	-0.81 pp
TER	Teradyne	3.20%	-8.00%	-0.26 pp	-0.77 pp
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.76%	-4.45%	-0.21 pp	-0.64 pp
NXPI	NXP	3.89%	-4.40%	-0.17 pp	-0.51 pp
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.72%	-9.20%	-0.16 pp	-0.47 pp
AVGO	Broadcom	7.92%	-1.97%	-0.16 pp	-0.47 pp
LRCX	Lam Research	3.36%	-3.78%	-0.13 pp	-0.38 pp
INTC	Intel	6.38%	-1.99%	-0.13 pp	-0.38 pp
ON	onsemi	2.51%	-4.93%	-0.12 pp	-0.37 pp
TXN	Texas Instruments	4.02%	-2.50%	-0.10 pp	-0.30 pp
KLAC	KLA	3.41%	-2.95%	-0.10 pp	-0.30 pp
MCHP	Microchip	3.17%	-3.08%	-0.10 pp	-0.29 pp
CRDO	Credo	1.83%	-4.30%	-0.08 pp	-0.24 pp
ADI	Analog Devices	3.39%	-2.27%	-0.08 pp	-0.23 pp
ENTG	Entegris	1.32%	-4.93%	-0.07 pp	-0.20 pp
NVMI	Nova	0.98%	-6.00%	-0.06 pp	-0.18 pp
ASML	ASML	2.66%	-2.13%	-0.06 pp	-0.17 pp
TSM	TSMC ADR	2.99%	-1.89%	-0.06 pp	-0.17 pp
ARM	Arm	0.56%	-10.06%	-0.06 pp	-0.17 pp
ASX	ASE Tech	1.04%	-2.90%	-0.03 pp	-0.09 pp
MTSI	MACOM	1.23%	+2.86%	+0.04 pp	+0.11 pp
NVDA	Nvidia	6.81%	+2.20%	+0.15 pp	+0.45 pp
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.59%	+8.51%	+0.31 pp	+0.92 pp
SOXX	iShares Semiconductor ETF	100.00%	-2.83%	-2.83 pp	-8.36%

Note: Microchip (MCHP) has an earnings call after close today.

I considered yoloing ARM earnings yesterday and boy am I glad I didn't get on that dumpster fire lmao.

SOXL to 500$ EOY

• AMD is now the main driver. AMD reported Q1 revenue of $10.3B, up 38% YoY, with data-center revenue up 57%, and guided Q2 revenue to about $11.2B. That explains AMD’s outsized move and the broader AI/server-chip read-through.
• Intel still riding high from talks with Apple. Yesterday Intel took the cake due to talks with Apple over supplying them with chips. There's no news on that front today but there is reinvigorated confidence in Intel now.

Ticker	Holding	Weight	Today	Est. SOXX impact	Est. SOXL impact
AMD	AMD	7.73%	+16.23%	+1.25 pp	+3.76 pp
NVDA	Nvidia	6.81%	+4.22%	+0.29 pp	+0.86 pp
INTC	Intel	6.38%	+3.58%	+0.23 pp	+0.68 pp
LRCX	Lam Research	3.36%	+6.67%	+0.22 pp	+0.67 pp
TER	Teradyne	3.20%	+6.32%	+0.20 pp	+0.61 pp
QCOM	Qualcomm	3.59%	+5.61%	+0.20 pp	+0.60 pp
AMAT	Applied Materials	4.76%	+3.68%	+0.18 pp	+0.53 pp
MU	Micron	8.49%	+1.98%	+0.17 pp	+0.50 pp
ASML	ASML	2.66%	+6.30%	+0.17 pp	+0.50 pp
TSM	TSMC ADR	2.99%	+5.45%	+0.16 pp	+0.49 pp
MPWR	Monolithic Power	4.18%	+3.85%	+0.16 pp	+0.48 pp
KLAC	KLA	3.41%	+3.97%	+0.14 pp	+0.41 pp
TXN	Texas Instruments	4.02%	+3.27%	+0.13 pp	+0.39 pp
NXPI	NXP	3.89%	+2.96%	+0.12 pp	+0.35 pp
MCHP	Microchip	3.17%	+3.47%	+0.11 pp	+0.33 pp
ADI	Analog Devices	3.39%	+2.65%	+0.09 pp	+0.27 pp
ON	onsemi	2.51%	+2.18%	+0.05 pp	+0.16 pp
ENTG	Entegris	1.32%	+3.08%	+0.04 pp	+0.12 pp
MRVL	Marvell	6.08%	+0.61%	+0.04 pp	+0.11 pp
NVMI	Nova	0.98%	+3.38%	+0.03 pp	+0.10 pp
MTSI	MACOM	1.23%	+1.90%	+0.02 pp	+0.07 pp
ASX	ASE Tech	1.04%	+1.08%	+0.01 pp	+0.03 pp
CRDO	Credo	1.83%	-1.70%	-0.03 pp	-0.09 pp
ALAB	Astera Labs	1.72%	-5.28%	-0.09 pp	-0.27 pp
AVGO	Broadcom	7.92%	-1.24%	-0.10 pp	-0.30 pp

Personally I sold a little SOXL today to put into ENLT. These chips were investing in are going to need to be powered somehow and solar is becoming increasingly economical. SOXL to 500$ EOY