Are silver mining stocks leading semiconductor stocks by four months? What institutions are really worried about is the cooling off of AI trading.

Today while looking at research reports, I happened to see that some institutions were comparing silver and semiconductor stocks. To be honest, I didn't take it seriously, just like the previous discussion about the correlation between M2 and Bitcoin. However, I noticed that Mr. Mai also mentioned this topic, so I’ll discuss this data.

This does not represent my personal opinion; I am merely interpreting the data released by the institutions.

The reason institutions compare silver mining stocks to semiconductors is not because there is any direct relationship between silver and chips, but rather that both types of assets are treated as "high-elasticity cyclical assets" in the market during certain stages.

Silver mining stocks are very sensitive to the price of silver; when the price of silver rises, mining stocks increase even more sharply, and when silver prices correct, mining stocks also drop faster. In semiconductors, particularly in storage, HBM, DRAM, and NAND, there are similar cyclical properties. When demand is strong, prices rise, and customers are scrambling for goods, stock prices exhibit high elasticity. Once the market begins to doubt the demand and price cycle, funds will quickly withdraw.

Therefore, institutions are looking at the liquidity, risk appetite, commodity cycle, inventory cycle, and price cycle reflected by silver mining stocks.

Silver mining stocks usually react to these factors more quickly because they are inherently linked to commodity prices, real interest rates, the dollar, and risk appetite. Semiconductors react more slowly because chips have to go through stages such as orders, inventory, customer capital expenditure, and earnings guidance, leading to a lag in market confirmation.

In simple terms, if silver mining stocks rise and then fall, institutions might believe this indicates that the same type of high-elasticity cyclical trading is beginning to cool off, while semiconductors have not yet fully reflected this.

This is what is referred to as "leading by four months." It does not mean that if silver falls, then semiconductors will definitely fall. What is truly being expressed is that silver mining stocks may have reflected changes in funds regarding cyclical assets, commodity prices, and risk appetite in advance, while in this round of market activity, particularly among storage and AI infrastructure-related stocks, semiconductors are increasingly resembling a cyclical trade.

Previously, the market was trading on large companies continuing to buy chips, computing power remaining tight, storage prices continuing to rise, and AI capital expenditures accelerating.

But now the market is starting to ask another question: did these large companies buy too little, or have they already bought too much? When will AI revenues catch up to such large capital expenditures? If this question is not answered well, the first part of the semiconductors to be repriced will likely be the portion that resembles commodities the most, namely storage.

To put it more clearly, some institutions have already begun to examine part of the semiconductor stocks as cyclical stocks.

Although I do not fully agree with this viewpoint, it aligns with the U.S. stock data I wrote about recently. The capital flow into tech stocks has started to worsen, institutions and hedge funds are reducing positions, nearly sixty percent of stocks in the tech sector have dropped more than 20% from their one-year highs, and now institutions are comparing silver mining stocks to semiconductors, indicating that AI trading is no longer as FOMO as it was earlier.

In the past, as long as AI, computing power, and chip shortages were discussed, the market was willing to assign a premium. Now the market is starting to demand verification, wanting to see orders, cash flow, capital expenditures, and profit returns. In other words, the importance of earnings reports is becoming more detailed.

My understanding is that the long-term logic of AI is still present, but the semiconductor sector may have already entered a verification stage.

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