Nvidia Corp. has catapulted up the list of the most valuable U.S. companies this year, rising eight spots from the end of last year to sit in the fifth position with a market capitalization of $ 1.2 trillion.
But other chip companies have seen their positions rise even more. Just look at Broadcom Inc. AVGO, +2.10%, which has climbed 16 spots over the course of 2023 and on Friday cracked the top 10 for the first time, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Broadcom eclipsed Visa Inc. V, -0.27% at Friday’s close to take the No. 10 spot, with a valuation of $ 527.7 billion.
Read: Could Nvidia’s stock — up 231% this year — actually be a bargain?
Admittedly, Broadcom had some help along the way. The company acquired VMware in late November, and its market capitalization gained about $ 50 billion at the close of the transaction, according to FactSet data.
But Broadcom’s ascent also reflects how chip stocks have gotten more shine this year amid the artificial-intelligence frenzy. Broadcom’s stock has doubled so far in 2023.
Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein expects “an order acceleration in networking silicon for AI clusters” in the second half of 2024, as calendar year 2025 could bring a big year of capital-expenditure investments in AI for ethernet back-end high-speed connections.
Broadcom “is the KEY WINNER in that investment cycle as the arms dealer to all networking OEMs,” or original equipment manufacturers, wrote Klein, who’s associated with Mizuho’s sales team and not its research arm.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD, +0.83% has also seen a nice march up the charts, rising 48 spots so far in 2023 to rank 30th in terms of market cap. AMD was valued at $ 223.9 billion as of Friday’s close.
“We view AMD as well-positioned to gain incremental share of the hugely profitable $ 100 billion-plus accelerator market while continuing to make progress in server [central processing units] against incumbent [Intel],” BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya wrote in a recent upgrade.