AI Trade Resurges with Chip and Memory Stocks on the Rise

AI stocks rebound, supporting Wall Street and sending the S&P 500 close to its record. The AI trade is gaining momentum as investors pile into tech stocks. Chip and memory stocks are leading the gainers, with many companies seeing their shares increase.

The AI trade is roaring back this week, led by chip and memory stocks. SanDisk SNDK, Micron MU, and Intel INTC are the top three performers in the S&P 500 this year, with gains as high as roughly 780% for SanDisk, about 300% for Micron, and around 278% for Intel, driven by explosive demand for AI memory.

The rally has been rapid even by AI-boom standards: the sector added an estimated $2 trillion in combined market value in the second quarter of 2026 alone, a sharp reversal from the oversupply and price collapse that weighed on memory makers for much of the prior cycle. Micron closed at $1,007.49 on Monday, up 3.3% on the day and up from roughly $121 a year earlier.

The renewed strength in chip and memory names has helped push the S&P 500 within about 1% of its record high, underscoring how concentrated the current market rally remains in AI-infrastructure-adjacent names. High-bandwidth memory and NAND flash, both critical inputs to AI data-center buildouts, remain the core drivers of what analysts are calling one of the strongest memory supercycles on record.

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