By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Publication Date: 2026-10-02 00:46:00
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) is having a huge 2026. As of midday on Sept. 30, the fund sat near $608 a share, up about 69% from its $360.13 close on the last trading day of 2025. This leaves it well ahead of the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC).
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), the fund’s top holding at about 19% of assets as of Sept. 29, has risen too, but nowhere near as much.
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The artificial intelligence (AI) chip leader’s stock traded around $230 as of this writing, about 23% over its $186.50 year-end close. Put another way, the fund has returned about three times as much as its biggest position this year.
I think this gap says more about how a chip fund is built than about Nvidia. About four-fifths of the fund’s money is in other chip stocks, and this year, most of the gain came from them.
Image source: Getty Images.
Three stocks powered almost half the gain
Showing how uneven the year’s been, Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) shares have climbed around 276% in 2026, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) shares about 223%, and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) shares about 181%.
As of Dec. 24, 2025, Nvidia was around 21% of the fund’s assets, while…
