美银称半导体股短期或再跌约10%，但将形成AI基础设施龙头买入机会

Bank of America Securities analysts indicated several factors that could weigh on semiconductor stocks in the near term but believe this could create buying opportunities.
The potential concerns weighing on the sector include rising rates, public pushback on data center projects, geopolitics, circular financing worries, and positioning.
"Though unjustified on fundamentals, we see another ~10% downside risk to the SOX, which would return the index to its historical (pre-ChatGPT, Nov-22) valuation discount to the SPX," said BofA analysts, led by Vivek Arya, in an investor note. "On the other side of the ledger, the setup is compelling: CQ4/CQ1 seasonality is strongly bullish, and SOX valuation (20x forward PE) looks cheap against a 70% EPS CAGR (CY26-28)."
The downside risk could create an "enhanced buying opportunity" for various key players in the AI infrastructure buildout, according to BofA. This includes Nvidia (NVDA), Marvell (MRVL), Micron (MU), Lam Research (LRCX), AMD (AMD), Intel (INTC), Analog Devices (ADI) and onsemi (ON).
In the near term, even though Nvidia is expected to report another blockbuster earnings report on Wednesday, it might not be enough to provide a catalyst for the stock. Instead, BofA believes buybacks provide a proper path.
"The core worry is that NVDA's seemingly open-ended checkbook to fund customers and suppliers is diluting earnings quality and potentially inflating higher-risk investments," Arya added. "We're sympathetic to NVDA's rationale, which is both offensive (funding disrupters to accelerate global AI deployment) and defensive (funding the non-hyperscale ecosystem to diversify its customer base, diffusing funding risks to financing institutions). The empirical picture, however, is telling: NVDA keeps posting strong earnings even as its multiple compresses under full positioning. We see a significant opportunity here for NVDA to run Apple's post-2012 playbook: lifting cash returns from ~50% of FCF today to 75%+. A bigger buyback would create that incremental marginal buyer and blunt the perception of risky AI-ecosystem investments."
For the bigger picture, BofA identifies continuing strength in the AI data center market for at least the next several years. Their analysis determines that the AI data center total addressable market will expand from $564B during calendar year 2026 to approximately $1.8T by 2030. AI servers will constitute $1.4T of the 2030 figure, networking will comprise $310B and storage will account for $85B.