SOXX in 2026: The AI Narrative is Real. But It’s Not the Whole Story.
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SOXX in 2026: The AI Narrative is Real. But It’s Not the Whole Story.
Strong returns. Wide dispersion. And a misattribution risk most investors aren’t measuring.
BOTTOM LINE
Semiconductors are up roughly 50% in 2026. The AI narrative has driven genuine idiosyncratic returns. But macro has played a bigger role than most PMs realise — as a drag during the drawdown, and as a tailwind for some of the biggest winners.
THE ETF LEVEL
SOXX’s 2026 return attribution tells a clear story.
Idiosyncratic returns, the orange bars, have been consistently positive throughout the year. The AI story is real.
But by end-March, total return had fallen to just 2.93%. Idio was still contributing. Macro was a 20.7% drag.
Since then, macro headwinds have abated and the idio story has strengthened further. The ETF’s headline return obscures how much the macro environment was doing to suppress it.
Continue reading our analysis by downloading the PDF above
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