Chip and Semiconductors stocks surge on Huawei, trade war reprieve

The top performers during Monday’s market rally by far were chip stocks after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to not add new tariffs on U.S. and Chinese goods and restart talks. Trump also said China will ease its ban on American companies selling products to Huawei.

The U.S. in May barred companies from selling to the giant Chinese telecommunications company, causing the shares to drop.

“We believe the truce sets up improving visibility, a rebound in orders and upside to depressed expectations for the Huawei-exposed semi suppliers in [the second half of 2019,]” Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh wrote in a note to investors where the analyst upgraded shares of Western Digital.

The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, which includes the top S&P 500 chipmakers, rose over 4% in premarket trading. Several technology hardware companies soared individually on the Huawei news, with Skyworks climbing 7%, Western Digital up 5.5%, Micron up 6.4%, while Qualcomm and Broadcom each jumped over 5% and AMD and Nvidia rose over 4%.

Dow futures rallied more than 260 points.

Chipmakers make up the majority of top U.S. companies with revenue exposure to China, according to Goldman Sachs.

– CNBC’s Yun Li and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.