Everyone's watching Nvidia. The real money moved somewhere else.
On January 2, 2026, chip stocks kicked off the year with a bang. Lam Research and Intel jumped more than 6%. Marvell rose 5%. AMD gained roughly 4%.
And Nvidia? Up about 1%.
Read that again. The most famous stock in the AI story — the one that gained 39% across all of 2025 — was the laggard on the day the sector opened its third straight winning year. Meanwhile AMD, less than half Nvidia's size in mindshare, had quietly ripped 77% in 2025.
That's not a rounding error. That's a signal. The AI trade is broadening — and the biggest gains are increasingly hiding outside the names your group chat keeps yelling about.
The 90% mover you've probably never heard of
Meet Allegro MicroSystems (ALGM). It makes sensor and power chips — the unglamorous silicon that keeps data centers cool and electric motors running. Not exactly dinner-party material.
Except Bank of America just flagged it as an under-the-radar AI beneficiary, and the stock has climbed more than 90% year-to-date. The thesis is simple and powerful: AI demand is no longer just about the flashy GPU. It's about everything around the GPU — power delivery, thermal management, sensing. As spending broadens beyond the mega-caps, second-tier suppliers get pulled along for the ride.
This is the pattern that repeats in every tech boom: first the headliner wins, then the supply chain wins, then the picks-and-shovels players win the longest.
The pick-and-shovel play with a 24% upside call
Speaking of picks and shovels — nobody sells them like ASML (ASML).
On January 6, 2026, Bernstein hiked its ASML price target from €800 (about $937) to €1,300 — a jaw-dropping raise implying roughly 24% upside. The catalyst? A memory chip shortage led by Micron and SK Hynix, driving 2026 capacity-expansion demand.
Here's why that matters: ASML has a near-monopoly on the lithography machines every advanced chip factory needs. When memory makers scramble to expand capacity, they don't call Nvidia — they call ASML. It's the toll booth on the entire semiconductor highway.
Why memory is the story of 2026
- AI models eat memory. Bigger models need more high-bandwidth memory, and supply can't keep up.
- Shortage = pricing power. Micron and SK Hynix are racing to build capacity.
- Capacity means equipment orders. And that flows straight to ASML's order book.
The contrarian setup: a custom-chip name 25% off its highs
Now for the value hunters. Broadcom (AVGO), a leader in custom AI chips, is trading about 25% below its highs — while the average analyst price target of $510 implies roughly 38% upside.
When a stock pulls back that hard but the analyst targets stay elevated, that's a contrarian buy signal: the market's fear and the analysts' math are pointing in opposite directions.
The catch — and you should always know the catch — is client concentration. If giants like Google or Meta scale back custom-chip orders, Broadcom's growth story wobbles. That's the real risk, and it's exactly why the stock is discounted. High reward, real risk. Size it accordingly.
Zoom out: money is chasing AI everywhere
This isn't just a chip story. It's a capital story.
Look at Alibaba (BABA): Bloomberg Intelligence's Catherine Lim noted the company redeployed over 90% of its March-quarter China e-commerce profit into Qwen AI adoption — a run rate expected to continue into FY2027. That's a company torching its cash cow's profits to fund AI, and the stock rallied on it.
Even the money managers are winning. Ares Management (ARES) jumped 7.96% pre-market to $160.55 on November 3, 2025 after a Q3 beat, with assets under management up 28% year-over-year. Capital is flooding into these themes — and the firms allocating it are cashing in too.
The takeaway: the AI trade has layers. The chipmaker, the equipment maker, the hidden supplier, the platform betting its profits, the manager collecting fees. You don't have to pick the one perfect name — you can own a slice of the whole chain.
How to buy this on AlphaEx
You don't need thousands of dollars or a finance degree. Here's the full path, start to finish:
- 1. Create your account — sign up free at AlphaEx in a couple of minutes.
- 2. Deposit any amount — start small; you can buy fractional shares, so $50 gets you into ASML or ALGM.
- 3. Search the ticker — type ALGM, ASML, AVGO, AMD, BABA or ARES in the search bar.
- 4. Tap Buy — set your amount and confirm. That's it — you're an investor.
- 5. Track live profit — watch your position move in real time on your dashboard.
- 6. Sell to your balance — lock in gains whenever you choose and withdraw or reinvest.
Spread it, don't bet it
Smart investors rarely put everything in one name. A basket approach — a little ASML for the toll-booth play, some ALGM for the broadening trade, a nibble of AVGO for the contrarian discount — spreads your risk while keeping you exposed to the theme.
The window is open now
Chip stocks just booked a third straight winning year. Analysts are hiking targets by 24%. A no-name sensor maker is up 90%. And the smart money — Ares, Alibaba, the BofA and Bernstein desks — is already positioned.
The question isn't whether AI capital keeps flowing. It's whether you're holding a piece of the pipe when it does.
Open your AlphaEx account today, deposit any amount, and buy your first chip stock in minutes. The rally didn't wait for permission — and neither should you.