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• Salesforce (-2.69% CRM)
• Intuit (-0.80% (INTU)
• Adobe (-1.37% (ADBE)

With these two companies down 50%.

• Workday (-0.96% WDAY)
• ServiceNow (-2.37% NOW)

according to data from MarketWatch.

The S&P500 IT Segment (SPX) is down 0.99% with the S&P SmallCap 600’s (SML -1.67%) IT sector (SP600.45 -5.39%) outperforming the S&P 500’s tech sector (SP500.45 -2.63%) by 38% in the last market year, according to Dow Jones market data.

This is in the face of major returns for large-cap memory and storage stocks –

• Sandisk (SNK +52.53% month-on-month)*

• Western Digital (WDC +42.41% mom)

• Micron Technology (+78.98% mom, with a P/E ratio of 36.04 and dividend of 0.151) *correct as at 15.19 12/05/26

And networking providers

• Lumatum Holdings (LITE +19.20% mom and 4.94% past five days) high trading volume has meant excessive volatility, potentially a tradable metric.
• Ciena (CIEN +19.32% mom and 1.35% over past five days). Minor market correction to normative price trend.

The best performer among the small-cap IT group was MaxLinear (MXL -7.28% with +344.15% over the preceding month. Although it is potentially facing legal charges from dishonouring an arrangement to acquire Silicon Motion (SIMO -6.04%)

MXL is a fabless chip company that designs analog and other non-AI Its chips are utilised in data centers. According to the International Energy Agency,

of worldwide electricity consumption in 2024, data centres comprised 1.5%, of which the US formed 45%, China formed 25%, and Europe made up 15%. Across the globe, data centre electricity consumption has risen 12% since 2017, over 4x quicker than the rate of total electricity consumption.

The report points to the fact that the market capitalisation of AI-related companies listed in the S&P 500 has expanded by around USD 12 trillion since 2022. Global investment in data centres almost doubled over the same time period.

• Ichor Holdings (ICHR) rose 353.81% over the preceding six months, with a 20-69% gain on the preceding month (down 5.16% today) – suggest buy the dip.

ICHR supplies gas and chemical delivery systems used for semiconductor capital equipment. As chipmakers are forced to scale up operations to meet demand and evolving technology requirements, it is targeting $300n for the second quarter.

• Cohu (COHU up 29.64% mom and 1117.72% over a six-month period )

Manufactures chip-testing and inspection equipment. MarketWatch cites Jefferies analyst Kevin Garrigan – “strong March quarter… reflected its strengthening opportunity in AI and high-performance computing”. Room for growth. Hold.

The company is expanding into provision for custom chips and central processing units.

• Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT) is up 213.44% over the past six months, +5.68% mom but down 6.45% on trading today. High degree of speculation over value of intangible assets integral to operations.

UCTT develops and furnishes manufacturing blueprints and parts for chip-manufacturing equipment. It signalled further penetration into wafer-fab equipment and market-dominant chipmakers.