Semiconductors: Growth, Earnings and Backlogs

Let's take a closer look at the Semiconductor Industry, one of the outperformers this year in the equity market with the XSD (Semiconductor SPRD ETF) up 33% in the last year. The first visual we'll look at has net income, 1-year growth on the y-axis and revenue, 1-year growth on the x-axis for a population that includes all US semiconductor firms with a market cap greater than $500M. (chart 1) Another way to peek deeper into this industry is to examine order backlogs. In this next visual we have earnings from continuing operations margin % on the x-axis and order backlog value (millions) on the y-axis. (chart 2) For a final visual, let's combine our work above into one final chart. On the x-axis we've plotted revenue, 1-year growth and on the y-axis we've plotted backlog, but we have only include the firms that have growing revenue and growing net income over the last year. We're left with a small population, and even in that smaller list, there are a few strong outliers. (chart 3) FSL stock is up 120% in the last two-years and 55% in the last year. MCHP is up 39% in the last two-years and 6% in the last year. XSD (the SPDR Semiconductor ETF) is up 72% in the last two-years and 33% in the last year.