Global Equity Strategy "Semis: the new oil...reasons to be overweight in..."

Research evidence excerpt

Global Equity Strategy "Semis: the new oil...reasons to be overweight in..."

Global Research

8 June 2026ab

Global Equity Strategy Equity Strategy

GlobalSemis: the new oil...reasons to be overweight in

parts Andrew Garthwaite

Strategist

andrew.garthwaite@ubs.com

+44-20-7567 4343

Semis are now 12% of global market cap, up from around c2.7% in 2022. Semis have Marc el Koussa

directly accounted for 51%, 55% and 40% of market returns YTD in US, EM and Japan, Strategist

respectively. Semis have only been this overbought (77% above its lows two months marc.el-koussa@ubs.com

ago) twice before (in October-December 1998 and in January-March 2000) - one was a +44-20-7567 0298

sell signal, the other a buy signal. Shreyas Guntur

shreyas.guntur@ubs.com

What is supportive?

+44-20-7567 0886

1. Since late November, we have had all 7 preconditions in place for a bubble

to form (every major new technology from railways to radio and mainframe was

associated with a bubble and a bust). We think the market today is more

similar to early 1999 not Q1 2000. We have not yet seen the preconditions

required to be close to the peak (credit spread rise for 10 months, earnings roll-

over a year ahead and central banks tighten to raise rates to be in line with nominal

GDP). In previous bubbles, the P/E of the bubble areas has risen to at least 45x to

72x 12 month trailing earnings (cf to MSCI Global semis today at 37x trailing

earnings) with overvaluation being 4 fold at peak (i.e. when the bubble burst,

prices fall c80%). Asia, in particular, has seen extremes in bubbles in the past (e.g.

the P/E of Taiwan and Japan in 1989 peaked at 72x and 100x 12 month trailing

earnings, respectively). Into bubbles, we will get volatility on even worse breadth.