Motley Fool Advisor is following the iShares Semiconductor ETF after it surged 70% in 2026 through Aug. 25. That beat the S&P 500’s 12.1% return and the Nasdaq-100’s 15.6% gain over the same stretch.
The ETF’s rise came from a narrow base. It holds 30 stocks, and more than one-quarter of its assets sat in Nvidia, Micron Technology, and Advanced Micro Devices as of Aug. 24, 2026.
Nvidia, Micron Technology, AMD
Nvidia is still the biggest driver inside the fund. Its data center graphics processing units lead the industry in AI training and inference workloads, and Jensen Huang said every leading frontier AI company plans to adopt Nvidia’s new Vera Rubin data center systems.
Micron and AMD add different links to the same trade. Micron is one of the world’s top suppliers of high bandwidth memory, while AMD recently launched Helios, a fully integrated data center rack built with specialized software and networking components designed to extract the best performance from its latest MI450 GPUs.
30 stocks, one tight trade
The ETF invests only in American companies that design, manufacture, and distribute chips and components, with a particular focus on the AI segment. That concentration has worked in 2026 because a small group of semiconductor names has carried much of the broader AI trade.
It has also made the fund more exposed to a turn in sentiment. With only 30 stocks and more than one-quarter of assets tied to its three largest holdings, a pullback in Wall Street’s view of chips could move the ETF faster than a broader index.
iShares since 2001
The 2026 run does not stand alone. Since its 2001 inception, the ETF has delivered a 14.2% compound annual return, compared with around 9% per year for the S&P 500 over the same period.
Investors in the ETF have a simple takeaway now: the fund has beaten both major indexes in 2026, but its path depends heavily on a handful of chip leaders. How sustainable is the ETF’s 70% 2026 gain if semiconductor sentiment weakens?
