# semiconductor earnings — X 热门讨论 (2026-09-24 06:50 UTC)
## @trevornoren (Trevor Noren) · 09-23 20:58 · ♥31 ↻4 💬3 Goldman: "Almost half of S&P 500 growth in EPS in 2026 comes from AI investment. The largest US hyperscaler companies are on track to spend $800b on capital expenditures this year, an increase of 94% over 2025. That money is flowing through the earnings of chipmakers, tech hardware suppliers, industrial firms, and utilities. There are second-order effects too. The boom has lifted capital markets activity and supported consumer spending through rising household wealth. However, both consensus and Goldman Sachs analyst forecasts show hyperscaler capex growing at a slower rate in coming years. In the meantime, the hyperscalers’ equipment carries depreciation charges that keep climbing as spending growth slows. This will further dampen the boost of AI investment spending to S&P 500 earnings growth."
Whether it's enterprise adoption, unit economics, or data center buildout challenges, I see myriad threats to market expectations about how soon and at what scale AI will deliver ROI. But even beyond the viability of AI ROI, AI-trade outperformance faces structural headwinds and it's not just comps. To quote my recent report on "The AI Trade" (https://t.co/wQQNniS2kj):
"Comps are a significant concern for US equities over the next 12 months. UBS has estimated that hyperscaler AI CAPEX will increase roughly 75% this year, 25% next year, and only 6% in 2028. That rate-of-change slowdown will certainly hit the semiconductor industry the hardest. However, we also believe market participants have neglected the impact circular spending is having on hyperscaler growth and the trickle-down impact to companies across sectors. As the rate of increase decreases, we expect earnings growth to broadly slow. And that’s before considering how everything we’ve laid out in this report could lead to spending that falls below estimates.
The comp headwind will be paired with another headwind: a spike in equity supply. In the run-up to SpaceX’s IPO, the surge in new equity supply grabbed headlines. That concern has since fallen off given SpaceX’s IPO did not have a measurable downside impact on the market. However, we wouldn’t take a short-term pullback in concern as evidence of long-term irrelevance. YTD, IPOs have raised $137b, putting this year on pace to far exceed the previous record—$156b in 2021. Added to that is the new supply coming from tech giants. In June, Alphabet alone raised ~$85b in the largest public stock sale in history. New supply is set to only increase over the next year. More mega-IPOs are coming. Meanwhile, 90- to 180-day lockup periods will expire, and selling by insiders, employees, and pre-IPO investors usually translates to more new supply than the IPO itself. Investors shouldn’t underestimate how that new supply could exacerbate a market downturn if AI sentiment dips and drags on inflows."
Chart link: https://t.co/AK0P0ll6Xk https://x.com/trevornoren/status/2102865303298588829