These 5 AI chip stocks are must-own into Q4, BofA says

Investing.com -- In a note on Thursday, analysts at Bank of America named its top semiconductor picks for the fourth quarter.

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The stocks are Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), Micron (NASDAQ: MU) and Lam Research (NASDAQ: LRCX).

The bank noted that the fourth and first quarters have historically been the best seasonal periods to own chip stocks, with median outperformance of 300 to 500 basis points against the S&P 500 from 2010 to 2025.

"Our top picks with near-term catalysts include: 1) NVDA (enhanced buybacks, multiple GTC tradeshow events), 2) INTC (agentic CPU strength, foundry win anticipation), 3) MU (start of buybacks from Dec-9), 4) MRVL (Analyst Day on Oct 6, XPU ramp) and 5) LRCX (share gain potential across memory, logic)," wrote BofA.

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BofA raised its forecast for the AI data center market to $2.2 trillion by 2030 from $1.8 trillion, implying 40% annual growth. It said adoption of AI agents, competition between AI labs and limited chip supply should keep spending strong.

The bank added that any slowdown or added safety measures for frontier AI models would likely increase computing requirements rather than reduce them.

BofA sees combined capital spending by major U.S. and Chinese cloud providers reaching about $1 trillion this year and $1.4 trillion in 2027, rising to $2 trillion to $3 trillion by 2030.

It said valuations remain compelling, with the SOX index trading at 21 times forward earnings, 12% below its median since ChatGPT launched.

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