Fund provider iShares was astute enough to accentuate the importance of the index changes that occurred in mid- September in the PHLX Semiconductor Index as something that some investors may have slept on given the many other headlines that have surfaced in these past busy weeks.
Ten new companies in the Semi space were added to the index while ten were deleted, in attempts to make the overall index more consistent with who is driving growth and innovation in various corners of these markets.
For example, as iShares noted, additions to the index include QCOM, ASML, MXIM, and FSL, which in retrospect, it’s quite hard to believe that some of these names, particularly QCOM was not added to the index eons ago.
The largest weighting in the index and related ETF SOXX (iShares PHLX SOX Semiconductor Sector Index,Expense Ratio 0.48%) is INTC (7.8%), which is slated to report quarterly earnings tomorrow, on Tuesday after the bell.
The remaining top five holdings are TXN (7.8%), QCOM (7.5%), AMAT (6.5%), and TSM (5.8%) and it is interesting how QCOM which was just added, is already a major overall component and driver of the index and potential price movement.