A New Chipmaker Just Topped Micron’s 2026 Return, Thanks To Nvidia

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Nvidia Corp.‘s record quarter handed the market a clear winner this week. It wasn’t Nvidia.

Shares of Arm Holdings plc climbed 38% in three sessions, leapfrogging Micron Technology Inc. to claim second place in the year-to-date performance ranking of the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

The British chip designer is now up roughly 170% in 2026.

Chart: Shares Of Arm Holdings Notched Best 3-Day Rally In Over 2 Years

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What Drove the Move

The catalyst stack has three layers.

At the top sits Nvidia Corp.’s record quarter, which lifted every name with credible exposure to artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

Below that, a fresh Bernstein initiation on May 18 reframed the Arm bull case. And under both sits Arm’s own fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 print earlier this month — quarterly revenue of $1.49 billion, up 20% year over year, with licensing revenue climbing 29% to $819 million.

Bernstein analyst David Dai initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and a $300 price target — a level that was about 45% above the stock when the note dropped, and is now only about 1% above where shares closed Thursday at $298.

“Arm stands out in server CPUs given its unparalleled power efficiency,” Dai said in a note to clients.

The framing matters. Dai argued that Arm sits “at the center of the renaissance of CPUs” that he sees…