Applied Materials Earns Zacks Rank #2 as Earnings Estimates Hold Steady

Yuanta Securities views Lam Research Corporation, or DR LRCX19, as one of the beneficiaries of rising demand for NAND flash memory, especially as AI usage expands from model training toward broader real-world deployment. Lam Research derives a relatively large share of revenue from equipment used to produce NAND, while revenue from equipment for DRAM memory chips is also supported by growing demand for advanced chips, namely the stacking of DRAM into HBM, a technology in which Lam Research already has expertise. In the short term, improving US-China relations could also be a supporting factor for the company, since it generates a high proportion of revenue from China and had previously been restricted from selling certain types of equipment to Chinese customers. The meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping could fuel short-term speculative interest. For the earnings outlook for fiscal year 2027, which ends in June 2027, the Bloomberg Consensus expects normalized profit to still grow strongly at 62% year on year, while the current price trades at a PER of 32 times for FY2027. It gives a target price of 4.80 baht per DR, implying 24% upside.

TSMC spent $15.59 billion on capital expenditure in its June 2026 quarter, its largest quarterly outlay in the past eight quarters and about 42% above the $10.98 billion spent in the prior quarter, as the company raised its 2026 capital budget for a third time this year, from $52 billion to $56 billion in January, to the high end of that range in April, and to $60 billion to $64 billion in July. On the Q2 2026 earnings call, CFO Wendell Huang guided third quarter gross margin down 170 basis points to 66%, citing 3 to 4 percentage points of dilution from the steep ramp of TSMC's 2 nanometer process, even as the June 2026 quarter's gross margin reached 67.72%, its highest in two years and consistent with the 67.7% figure cited by CEO C.C. Wei. Huang said TSMC generated about $24.5 billion in operating cash flow that quarter, enough to cover the $15.59 billion in CapEx and roughly $4.9 billion in dividends without new borrowing. TSMC is trading at 22.46 times forward normalized earnings, close to its 22.41 times two year average and well below the 29.65 times high in that range, after a mid September selloff tied to AI safety warnings from Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman rather than anything specific to TSMC. Institutional 13F filings dated June 30, 2026 show a split Street, with Coatue raising its TSMC stake 7.6% to 9.3 million ADRs and Situational Awareness lifting its position to 2.6 million shares, while Lone Pine cut its stake 92.7%, SoftBank cut 71.5%, and Viking Global cut 29%.