VanEck Chip ETF Hovers at Record Highs as AMD’s AI-Led Surge Collides with Burry’s Bearish Bet

The VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF is within a hair’s breadth of its all‑time peak, yet the rally that has nearly doubled the fund since January is drawing an increasingly skeptical crowd. The fund closed Tuesday at €109.56 and edged to €109.32 on Wednesday, just 1.7% shy of its record €111.18, as profit‑taking and warnings from a famed short seller vie with the structural momentum of the AI chip cycle.

Advanced Micro Devices has been the engine of the latest leg. The stock hit an all‑time high of $580.91 on July 1 after reporting a 57% jump in data‑center revenue year‑over‑year, a pace that has analysts scrambling to raise targets. Wells Fargo now sees AMD at $615, while Cantor Fitzgerald puts fair value as high as $700, calling the chipmaker the sector’s strongest momentum name. The enthusiasm is not confined to AMD: Micron, Intel and AMD together added roughly $2 trillion in market capitalisation during the second quarter, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 87% over the same period.

The ETF itself has climbed almost 99% since January and trades 18% above its 50‑day moving average of €92.64. With assets under management topping €8 billion and an annual expense ratio of just 0.35%, the fund has become a popular one‑stop bet on the AI‑infrastructure buildout. Its top holdings — AMD, Micron and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. — all posted stellar results, with Micron reporting record revenue and TSMC enjoying margin expansion that prompted Bank of America to raise its price target to $590.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF?

But the sheer speed of the advance is triggering caution. Deutsche Börse data show elevated outflows from the ETF in recent weeks, with some investors rotating capital into broader indices such as the MSCI World and FTSE All‑World. The sector’s volatility relative to the S&P 500 has reached an 11‑year high, and the disclosure of short positions by Michael Burry — who has drawn parallels to the dot‑com bubble — has added to the debate about whether the rally has run too far, too fast.

Adding to the headwinds is a US antitrust lawsuit targeting leading memory‑chip makers over alleged collusion in DRAM pricing and production. How far the probe reaches could weigh on sentiment across the sector, even as structural demand remains robust. The global semiconductor market is expected to reach $1.3‑1.5 trillion in 2026, with AI‑specific chips accounting for roughly $500 billion, according to Deloitte. Nomura recently raised price targets on several chipmakers and expects the current AI investment cycle to last until at least 2028.

Meanwhile, AMD is making strategic moves to secure supply. The company bought a stake in Marvell Technology, following Nvidia’s $2 billion bet on the same supplier, signalling that competition for specialized chip components is intensifying. The coming weeks will test whether these fundamentals can overpower the technical warning signs. TSMC reports second‑quarter earnings on July 16, and AMD follows in August. Strong results from either bellwether could renew the rally — but with a short‑seller of Burry’s pedigree betting against the sector, the margin for error has never been thinner.