The Chipmakers’ Bumper Year

Semiconductor stocks have been on a hot streak in 2017, with demand booming from all sectors of the economy

Jensen Huang, founder, president, and CEO of Nvidia, holds the Xavier AI car supercomputer, at a keynote address in Las Vegas on Jan. 4, 2017. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The stock performance of companies in the semiconductor sector has been spectacular this year.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is up more than 39 percent year-to-date, as of Oct. 27. That’s a massive outperformance of the broader Nasdaq Composite Index, which is up 24 percent since Jan. 1.