#存储芯片股集体走强 How much longer will chip stocks keep rising? Don’t panic as long as the memory price-hike signal hasn’t stopped

U.S. stocks closed overnight, with semiconductors the brightest sector of the entire market. Micron rose nearly 5% in a single session, while Nvidia and Intel also gained more than 3% each. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was entirely in the green (red means gains, green means losses). Aside from Broadcom, which was basically unchanged, it was almost impossible to find a single green line.
Is this rally just getting started, or is it nearing its peak?

The most practical signal: Have memory prices stopped rising?
Rising memory prices are the strongest leg of this semiconductor cycle
Let’s first clarify one thing: Where is semiconductor money flowing most heavily right now? The answer is memory.
The data from TrendForce is right there: DRAM contract prices rose 58% to 63% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2026; NAND Flash was even more aggressive, rising 70% to 75% quarter-on-quarter in Q2, with a larger increase than DRAM.
What does this mean? A year ago, you would never have believed that memory modules and solid-state drives could rise this much.
Why are prices rising so sharply? It’s not speculation; supply and demand have genuinely broken down. On the demand side, AI computing power is consuming memory at a frantic pace. High-bandwidth memory such as HBM is being snapped up by Nvidia’s chips and major intelligent computing centers. Original equipment manufacturers are shifting all their capacity toward high-end HBM, leaving standard DRAM and NAND products in short supply.
On the other side, no one is willing to expand capacity for standard products. Memory prices plunged over the past two years, hurting manufacturers badly. Now that the supercycle of price increases has finally arrived, who would expand capacity early and drive prices back down? Capacity is stuck at this level while demand continues to grow. So this round of price increases is continuing into Q3. Institutions expect DRAM prices to rise another 13% to 20% in Q3, while Citi forecasts Samsung DDR5 RDIMM pricing at $1,402 in Q3, up another 13% quarter-on-quarter. The supercycle could extend into 2027 or 2028—but Bernstein also warns of the risk of a retreat from the highs in 2027!
But as long as memory contract prices are still rising, money will not easily withdraw from the semiconductor theme.
Some say this rally is the “last hurrah.” Is that really the case?
Recently, a view has emerged in the market that memory prices have risen so much and U.S. semiconductor stocks are hitting new highs every day, making this look very much like the frenzy before the 2021 peak, so investors should get out early. But equating 2026 with 2021 means treating two completely different things as if they were the same.
What rose in 2021? Fear of shortages. Pandemic-related supply chain disruptions led everyone to hoard goods in panic, and prices were driven up by the fear of “not being able to buy them.” What happened next? Once the panic faded, double orders turned into order cancellations, inventories piled up, and prices crashed. The rise at that time had a hollow foundation; it was driven by sentiment.
What is rising in 2026? Genuine demand for AI computing power. HBM is being demanded urgently by Nvidia’s chips and intelligent computing centers, with all capacity shifting toward high-end products and standard products facing shortages instead. This demand is not panic over “not being able to buy” something; it is incremental demand driven by the real expansion of computing power. The demand is solid, not hollow.
In one sentence: 2021 was “hoarding because of fear of shortages,” while 2026 is “a genuine shortage of capacity.” Panic will fade, but computing-power expansion will not stop because of market sentiment. So don’t let the simplistic idea that “prices must fall after rising too much” scare you into expecting mean reversion. What matters is whether the gear on the demand side has stopped turning—so long as AI continues to expand, the memory shortfall cannot be filled.
Of course, this doesn’t mean charging in blindly. Even the strongest logic can become fully priced in. So “watch trading volume, not feelings.” #我的七夕交易分享 $INTC ‌