The best semiconductor stocks right now, according to the finance accounts we track

Thirty-four of the 35 chip stocks the accounts we track discussed in the week to October 19 closed lower than a week earlier. SK hynix, the answer on this page a month ago, fell 11.9% after ten straight lower closes. Across the group, the accounts with a graded record still posted 121 bullish calls to 26 bearish.

On one name they have not posted a bearish call in thirty days. TSMC is 26 to 0, and it tops this month's ranking ahead of ASML, which has the higher score and a thinner graded room.

The short answer, as of October 20, 2026: TSMC (TSM) has the strongest read among semiconductor stocks, with a score of 81 and graded accounts 14 to 0 bullish in the week to October 19 and 26 to 0 over 30 days. ASML (ASML) has the highest score, 86, on a graded split of 5 to 2. SK hynix (SKHY) scores 80 after an 11.9% fall that week, with graded accounts 13 to 3.

How we rank semiconductor stocks

We track 98 chipmakers and chip-equipment companies, SK hynix included. The accounts we follow mentioned 35 of them in the last seven days: 738 mentions, 479 bullish to 208 bearish. Most of the 35 sit on a handful of posts. FormFactor scores 86 on eight mentions, Applied Materials 81 on seven, Lam Research 81 on four, GlobalFoundries 79 on seven. A signal score built on seven posts can swing on any one of them.

Two floors decide who gets ranked: at least 20 mentions from the accounts we track in the last seven days, and a graded split you can see. Graded means the bullish and bearish calls from accounts with a real track record: more than ten resolved calls, and more than half of them right. The score already weights by that record. The column lets you see how much of the score rests on it.

The best semiconductor stocks right now, ranked

Every chip name with 20 or more mentions this week, ranked by its 7-day score, with what the company makes, the graded split this week, and mentions and price over 7 days with the 30-day figure beneath each:

All eight fell on the week. Four score 80 or above, the line we use for "strong" everywhere else on this blog. Two of those four sit upstream of everyone else: TSMC makes chips for other companies, and ASML sells the machines they are made on. SK hynix is Korean, tracked on both its US listing and the Seoul one; its mention counts combine the two and the score is the US listing's. TSMC and ASML count on their US listings. The memory names that share the trade but not the classification, SanDisk and the optical names Lumentum and Coherent, have their own posts and stay off this table. They are ranked with the servers, GPU clouds and power names, the rest of the AI value chain, on our AI infrastructure stocks list.

Nvidia and Micron have the most graded calls on the table, 25 to 2 and 24 to 4, and they score 62 and 72. The rest of their crowd pulls the score down: on Reddit, Micron's posts ran 28 bullish to 38 bearish this week. Nvidia's graded column also leans on one account, which posted 11 of its 25 bullish calls and both bearish ones.

The answer: TSMC, and why it is not ASML

ASML has the higher score, 86 against 81, and it is the runner-up because most of the conversation behind that score came from one report. ASML reported its third quarter before the European open on October 14, and 39 of its 62 mentions over thirty days landed this week. The accounts we track relayed record sales, a raised full-year outlook, and management saying the supply it has planned for 2027 and 2028 will not fully meet customer demand. The stock closed that day at $1,650.00, 3.9% below the day before. On X the posts ran 15 bullish to 1 bearish. On Reddit, where people were watching the price, they ran 5 to 9.

The graded room split 5 to 2, and one of the two bears made the most specific argument of the week. SKundojjala pointed out that ASML stopped disclosing net orders this year, and that its trailing order fill rate fell from 126.8% in the second quarter of 2025 to 87.3% in the fourth. Over thirty days ASML's graded split is 12 to 2.

TSMC reported the next day, October 15. This week: 40 mentions, 36 bullish to 3 bearish, 31 of them on X, and 14 to 0 among graded accounts across seven of them. The accounts relayed revenue above guidance, earnings per share up 68.7% from a year earlier, fourth-quarter revenue guidance about 6% above consensus, and management saying demand for leading-edge AI chips runs far above what TSMC can supply. One graded account bought on the dip, calling TSMC a wide-moat name he can hold for years.

Over thirty days the graded split is 26 to 0, from 10 accounts. No other name on the table has gone a month without a graded bear. One caveat: 14 of the 26 come from a single account, TheValueist, and several of his posts relay the results more than argue them. The stock closed at $430.00 the day before the report and $420.22 on October 19, down 5.4% on the week, the second-smallest fall on the table. A room this one-sided on a falling stock is an open bet, and we count it as one.

Last month's answer was SK hynix at $175.63, the September 14 close. It climbed to $195.13 by October 2 and closed October 19 at $142.87, 18.7% lower.

Who made the TSMC calls

Some of the best graded accounts we track are behind the TSMC read; seven of the eight below rank in our top 20 by track record. Their record across every stock we grade, and their bullish and bearish TSMC posts over the last thirty days:

Read the record before the split. TheValueist carries more than half the column, and 1,275 resolved calls is a lot of evidence behind one voice. Aaronwei3n has 171, a shorter record the credibility weighting behind the score treats differently. Three of these accounts have profiles on this blog: TheValueist, aleabitoreddit and jukan05.

The dissent: SK hynix's bears had the week

Graded accounts posted 26 bearish calls on chip stocks this week. Three were on SK hynix, and on the week they were right.

On October 13, ParadisLabs wrote that foreign institutions had been net sellers of SK hynix every day for a week, part of a "Sell Korea, Buy US" trade. On October 14, jukan05 relayed a Korean media report that SK hynix was pushing HBM4 packaging equipment orders into next year, and unconfirmed talk of trouble in its HBM4 back-end process. The US listing closed at $162.23 on October 12 and $136.49 on October 16, then bounced to $142.87 on Monday. The crowd blamed the same things plus China's push into memory capacity: across everyone who posted, SK hynix ran 67 bullish to 34 bearish, with Korean blogs 1 to 7.

The bears did not hold the room. A day later, jukan05 posted that SK hynix and Samsung were being discounted on fears of a memory peak, and that even with margins halved they would trade on a P/E in the teens. On October 16, aleabitoreddit pointed SK hynix holders to supply contracts with the big cloud companies that now run for years. Over thirty days the graded split is 36 to 7. SK hynix's score is 80, down from 86 in last month's edition, and the graded column shows you how small a share of the room the bears were.

Undervalued semiconductor stocks, by the room's argument

We do not value companies, and a sentiment score is not a valuation. The graded accounts do make valuation arguments, and this week they came from accounts buying the sell-off. The teens P/E case for SK hynix and Samsung above is one. On October 17, ren_stocks argued that memory stocks are priced for a bust he does not see coming, with inventories under ten days and record earnings through 2028. Two days earlier, michaelsikand posted a large Credo purchase under $180, on a forward P/E in the low 20s against networking peers. Those numbers are theirs. To check them, start with what a P/E ratio is and is not, then look up the forward figure yourself.

The most talked-about semiconductor stocks

The same week, sorted by how much the accounts we track talked about a name rather than by what the graded accounts think of it:

Micron passed Nvidia as the loudest chip stock this month, on a crowd split close to even on Reddit. TSMC is fifth by volume and has the cleanest split in both columns. The weekly most mentioned stocks board runs the volume sort across everything we cover; this page runs the graded one for chips.

Common questions

What are semiconductor stocks?

Semiconductor stocks are listed companies that design or make computer chips, or build the equipment and materials used to make them. NVIDIA (NVDA), TSMC (TSM), ASML (ASML), Micron (MU), Broadcom (AVGO) and SK hynix (SKHY) are examples. Our grouping covers 98 companies.

What are the best semiconductor stocks to buy right now?

Quantral does not tell you what to buy. As of October 20, 2026, the semiconductor stock with the strongest read from the accounts we track was TSMC: a score of 81, with graded accounts 14 to 0 bullish in the week to October 19 and 26 to 0 over 30 days. ASML had the highest score, 86, with a graded split of 5 to 2.

What happened to SK hynix stock in October 2026?

SK hynix's US listing (SKHY) closed lower ten sessions in a row, from $195.13 on October 2 to $136.49 on October 16, and closed at $142.87 on October 19. The accounts we track tied the fall to foreign selling of Korean chip stocks, China's memory expansion and reports about its HBM4 ramp. Graded accounts stayed 36 to 7 bullish over the 30 days to October 19.

Why did ASML stock fall after earnings?

ASML reported third-quarter results on October 14, 2026, and closed at $1,650.00, 3.9% lower than the day before. The accounts we track reported record sales and a raised outlook. One graded account pointed to a falling order fill rate and to ASML no longer disclosing net orders.

How does Quantral rank semiconductor stocks?

Quantral ranks them by 7-day score, among the chip stocks with at least 20 mentions from the accounts we track in seven days. Beside each score sits the split from graded accounts: those with more than ten resolved calls, more than half of them right.

Where to check the live reading

The table on this page is fixed at October 20. By November the scores will have moved, and SK hynix's will move again after its next report. Before you act on any row, check who made the calls, then how many of them, then the price. The same method ranks space stocks and AI infrastructure stocks. To turn a table like this into a decision of your own, start with how to know what stock to invest in, then run how to research stocks on whichever name survives. For the ways a raw sentiment feed can mislead you, read how to use social signals without getting played.

See the live version of this table in Quantral, with every call behind each score and the record of the account that made it.

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Price moves are 7 days (the October 12 close to the October 19 close, five sessions) and 30 days (September 18 to October 19). Mention windows are October 13 to 19 (7 days) and September 19 to October 19 (30 days), in US Eastern calendar days. Mention counts and splits cover the accounts Quantral tracks; graded accounts have more than ten resolved calls, most of them right. "Semiconductor" follows the industry classification in our database (semiconductors plus semiconductor equipment and materials), with SK hynix added. Company results attributed to the accounts we track are as they reported them. Scores are the seven-day reading as of October 20, not historical values. Positions attributed to accounts are their views, not Quantral's. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell. Past signals are not indicative of future results.