$$AMAT (-4,6%)
Applied Materials: One of the World’s Best Chip Suppliers Is Trading at a Discount—Time to Buy!

Applied Materials is one of the best stocks in the world. Its price has risen by 428,000% since 1985. Hardly any other stock would have delivered a higher return. Now the stock price has taken a hit. A new opportunity has arisen—especially for patient investors. In one of the largest suppliers of manufacturing equipment.

My friends,

I realize that the support level must hold now.

And I also realize that the earnings reports are still to come.

But I hope that by then, sentiment will shift a bit and the numbers will be viewed a little more rationally.

After all, memory chip companies in particular are upgrading their operations with new machinery.

Just like other sectors, as we could see from the best numbers in history at $AIXA (-4,06%) . And $KLAC (-3,2%) KLA also shone.

$VZ (+2,09%)
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$STX (-4,94%)
$HOOD (-3,29%)
$SKHY (-4,32%)
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$DBK (-2,44%)
$GEV (-0,94%)
$TER (-4,38%)
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$CMG (+2,8%)
$FTNT (-0,99%)
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$006400
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$MO (+1,32%)
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$CL (+1,2%)
$GD (+0,68%)
$ABBV (+0,23%)
$PUM (+4,91%)
$CVX (+1,29%)

In August, gold mines were the market's top performers. In September, they were the most expensive. Fresnillo
$FRES (-2,09%) down 15 percent, Micron
$MU (-1,97%) up 17. At the end of the month, the Wikifolio was up 1.03 percent, and one day later, I swapped out 18 of 30 positions.

September was all about interest rates and oil. Brent rose above $100 in the second week and, following a Saudi pipeline outage, briefly hit $110. U.S. inflation stood at 3.4 percent in August. On September 16, the Fed raised the benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, for the first time since July 2023. The 10-year U.S. yield subsequently climbed to 5.19 percent, a level last seen in 2007. This hardly bothered tech stocks. The Nasdaq hit a record high on September 21, and AMD has been worth one trillion dollars ever since. The situation was different in Europe. German inflation jumped to 3.3 percent, and the DAX lost about four percent over the month.

📊 Monthly performance: +1.03%

📊 Price as of September 30: €117.97

📊 Largest loss since inception: −14.6%

📊 Max performance: +18% (since March 13, 26)

Next rebalancing: Early January 2027

Performance & Comparison 🚀

The U.S. indices posted clear gains when calculated in euros, with the Nasdaq leading the way. The Wikifolio did not keep pace. It lagged behind the Nasdaq, S&P 500, and FTSE All-World, and outperformed only the DAX.

Performance Comparison (September 1–30, 2026, end of day):

Global Quant 6-Factor: +1.03%

NASDAQ 100: +4.18%

S&P 500: +2.90%

FTSE All-World: +1.95%

DAX: −4.07%

You can see what caused this in the two lists below. Tech stocks delivered, while mining stocks and a few individual stocks ate up a good chunk of those gains.

Purchases & Sales 💶

None in September itself. The model trades only on four dates per year, and the third was on October 1. What happened then is detailed in its own section below.

Top Movers in September 🟢

The month belonged to semiconductors and memory stocks. Midway through the month, Intel’s CEO said the company could currently only meet about half of the demand for processors. After that, the entire industry picked up steam. Micron
$MU (-1,97%) topped the list with +16.91%, followed by SanDisk
$SNDK (-10,82%) at +13.90% and TSMC
$2330 at +11.85%. Lam Research
$LRCX (-2,25%) rose +11.12%, ASML
$ASML (-4,98%) +10.06%. In between is Comfort Systems $FIX (-2,72%) , a stock that has nothing to do with chips, up 10.47%. In August, Comfort Systems was still among the losers.

September’s Big Losers 🔴

Gold and silver declined in September, with silver falling much more sharply. Rising yields and a stronger dollar weighed on prices. Mining stocks followed suit. Fresnillo
$FRES (-2,09%) lost −14.53%, Coeur Mining
$CDE (-6%) −10.65%, and Endeavour Mining $EDV (-6,09%) -7.50%. In August, all three were still on the other list with gains of over 25 percent. Merlin Properties fell −8.98%, Airtel Africa
$AAF (-5,69%) down 7.76%, and Interactive Brokers
$IBKR (-4,23%) fell by 6.79%.

Rebalancing on October 1 🔄

On October 1, the third rebalancing since the start took place. I swapped out 18 of 30 positions—more than ever before. In July, it was nine.

All nine banks are out: Bankinter
$BKT (-1,29%) , CaixaBank
$CABK (+0,52%) , BBVA
$BBVA (-4,34%) , UniCredit
$UCG (-1,37%) , BPER
$BPE (-1,09%) , Monte dei Paschi $BMPS (-1,19%) , Banca Mediolanum
$BMED (-0,95%) , Swedbank$SWED A (-0,41%) and HSBC
$HSBA (-2,53%) . In addition, Interactive Brokers $IBKR (-4,23%) , Antofagasta $ANTO (-4,64%) , Coeur Mining
$CDE (-6%) , AppLovin
$APP (-9,25%) , Airtel Africa
$AAF (-5,69%) , Merlin Properties and Solaria
$SLR (-5,11%) . Investor AB
$INVE B (+1,93%) and Pershing Square
$PSH (-1,53%) are also no longer in the portfolio. So four of the six underperformers listed above are no longer in the portfolio.

Six stocks from the healthcare sector were added: Eli Lilly
$LLY (+2,49%) , Bristol-Myers
Squibb
$BMY (+2%) , Vertex $VRTX , Incyte
$INCY (+3,25%) , Illumina
$ILMN (-6,74%) and WuXi AppTec
$603259 . Five are from the semiconductor and storage sectors: Seagate
$STX (-4,94%) , Marvell
$MRVL (-5,75%) , Applied
Materials
$AMAT (-4,6%), Teradyne
$TER (-4,38%) and KLA
$KLAC (-3,2%) . The rest is split among Fortinet
$FTNT (-0,99%) , CF Industries
$CF (+5,18%) , Marathon Petroleum
$MPC (+3,03%) , APA
$APA (+2,8%) , Pop Mart $9992 (+3,74%) , Hong Kong Exchanges
$388 (+0,62%) and Lion Finance
$BGEO (-5,54%) .

Twelve remain: SanDisk, Micron, Western Digital, Nvidia, Lam Research, TSMC, ASML, Alphabet, Comfort Systems, Fresnillo, Endeavour and Newmont. All six of September’s top movers are included.

Two names stand out. Applied Materials and KLA I sold on July 1, up 92 and a gain of 90 percent. Now both are back in my portfolio. The model doesn’t remember what it has sold in the past. It only looks at where a stock stands in the ranking today.

Conclusion 💡

The portfolio looks different after October 1 than it did before. In September, about 41 percent was still in financial stocks; now there are two positions out of 30. Instead, 12 out of 30 are in semiconductors and memory, and six are in the healthcare sector. There’s no sector limit; the model sorts by score, not by industry. Trading won’t resume until early January.

How was your September? And did you hold onto your stocks after the pullback, or did you sell them? 👇

➡️ Every month, you’ll find the complete Wikifolio update here, along with research in between.

📈 Wikifolio $DE000LS9V052 (-1,68%)

Hello, everyone,

I've been monitoring the correction among semiconductor equipment manufacturers for weeks now.

And a brand-new analysis by the agents at @Raketentoni has identified these stocks as current long-term picks.

Further proof of their reliability is that our star investor @Simpson has been invested here for years.

That’s why, my friends, I’ve put together a comparison for you this weekend.

Please let me know in the comments how you like this type of comparison and whether you’d like to see more of it.

In a future post, there will be a poll. Feel free to select your top pick there.

$AMAT (-4,6%)

$KLAC (-3,2%)

$LRCX (-2,25%)

🏆 My ranking of the three companies

🥇 1. Applied Materials – most attractive valuation profile

• In 2028, only 19.97× P/E
• PEG drops to 0.87× 2027
• 2028 even -0.20× PEG according to your data
• EPS rises from €7.43 to €20.72
• Earnings growth remains steady in 2027/28 at 39.42% / 29.03% strong
• At the same time, it has the highest dividend of the three

➡️ For me, clearly the best balance of growth and valuation.

🥈 2. Lam Research – strongest growth, but more expensive

• Highest earnings growth in 2027: +60.76%
• EPS rises by about 184% from 2025 to 2028
• Although the P/E ratio falls from 55.31× to 27.08×
• the PEG ratio will rise to 1.60×

➡️ Extremely strong operational performance, but the market continues to demand a high valuation for it.

🥉 3. KLA – an outstanding company, but the most expensive in terms of PEG

• Strong earnings growth
• Still +46.45%
• P/E ratio falls to 27.46×
• However, the PEG rises to 2.26× in 2028

➡️ Very interesting from a qualitative perspective, but currently the most challenging valuation based on the multiples.

My conclusion: If I consider the multiples and earnings forecasts provided by onVista , Applied Materials is currently the clear favorite. Lam Research has the most impressive growth, but this growth is more heavily factored into the stock price and multiples. KLA appears to be the most expensive in terms of its P/E-to-growth ratio.

Note: Applied Materials’ negative PEG for 2028 is striking and should be cross-checked against the original MarketScreener table before making an investment decision.

On July 1, the second rebalancing of my Wikifolio took place—a rule-based portfolio with 30 equally weighted positions that has been running since March 13. Nine positions out, nine in. I had expected this to shift the structure. When I checked the numbers, almost everything was the same as before.

A quick note on how it works

A Python scanner evaluates approximately 845 stocks from 14 indices daily based on six factors. Those that make it into the top 25 are purchased. Those that fall below rank 40 are removed. Quarterly adjustments, no sector allocation, no discretion.

What was dropped:

• 4 tech stocks: Applied Materials $AMAT (-4,6%) (+92%), KLA-Tencor $KLAC (-3,2%) (+90%), Broadcom $AVGO (-2,31%) , Amphenol $APH (-2,59%). Not because of earnings, but because the valuation could no longer keep up with the share price and the stock’s ranking plummeted.

• 5x Finance: ING $ING (-2,06%), Jyske Bank $JYSK (-1,34%), Unicaja $UNI (+0,22%), Baader Bank $BWB (-0,3%), Nu Holdings $NU (-1,88%).

New additions:

• ASML $ASML (-4,98%), Alphabet $GOOG (+0,06%), SanDisk $SNDK (-10,82%), Investor AB $INVE B (+1,93%), BBVA $BBVA (-3,55%), UniCredit $UCG (-1,37%), Monte dei Paschi $BMPS (-1,19%), Banca Mediolanum $BMED (-0,95%), Swedbank $SWED A (-0,41%).

The interesting part

Micron $MU (-1,97%) stayed in the portfolio, up over 100 percent. The score held, and the ranking remained higher. A system that sells based on profit would have kicked Micron out first. The model treated these three big winners completely differently because it doesn’t know the purchase price at all.

And on the other hand:

SanDisk $SNDK (-10,82%) was added that same evening, at 1,820 euros. The stock had already been on the buy list in April but wasn’t tradable at the time. Today, the position is down about 50 percent. The timing could hardly have been worse.

The sector breakdown before and after

Technology fell from 30 to 23.3 percent, financials rose from 36.7 to 40. Materials remained at 16.7.

A factor model does not distinguish between sectors. It sorts by score, and stocks in the same sector often receive similar scores because they are influenced by the same drivers. If one falls below rank 40, there is a high probability that another from the same sector is ready to take its place in the top 25. The model captures gains and returns to the same sector, just with different names.

My Conclusion

One quarter doesn’t prove anything. I don’t have a sector cap in the model because my backtest doesn’t have one either.

Next rebalancing: October 1.

Who among you uses a rule-based approach and has a sector cap in place?

I’m curious to know what percentage cap you use.

Which ones are you invested in?

+107% Intel $INTC (-10,36%)

+92% Credo Techn. $CRDO

+91% Astera Labs $ALAB (-7,62%)

+73% MediaTek $2454

+72% AMD $AMD (-5,15%)

+72% Seagate $STX (-4,94%)

+71% SanDisk $SNDK (-10,82%)

+67% KIOXIA $285A (-13,04%)

+66% ON Semiconductor $ON (-2,2%)

+61% STMicroelectronics $STM (-4,56%)

+55% Marvell $MRVL (-5,75%)

+51% NXP $NXPI (+0,11%)

+49% Siltronic $WAF (-6,6%)

+47% GLOBALFOUNDRIES $GFS (-4,52%)

+47% SK Hynix $000660

+47% Micron $MU (-1,97%)

+46% Infineon $IFX (-4,37%)

+45% Western Digital $WDC (-4,37%)

+43% Texas Instruments $TXN (-2,27%)

+42% Arm Holdings $ARM (-2,74%)

+41% QUALCOMM $QCOM (-7,5%)

+41% Monolithic Power $MPWR (+2,21%)

+40% Aixtron $AIXA (-4,06%)

+40% Microchip Techn. $MCHP (-0,36%)

+34% Broadcom $AVGO (-2,31%)

+30% Skyworks $SWKS (+0,84%)

+25% Samsung Electronics $005930

+24% Analog Devices $ADI (-2,95%)

+18% TSMC $TSM (-3,38%)

+16% Lam Research $LRCX (-2,25%)

+14% KLA $KLAC (-3,2%)

+13% NVIDIA $NVDA (-2,63%)

+10% Applied Materials $AMAT (-4,6%)

+9% ASML $ASML (-4,98%)

I have AMD. Which one do you have?