Where AI capex meets the tightest physical supply limit: HBM/DRAM, NAND and data-center disk. Sold-out capacity, multi-year supply agreements and an oligopoly structure concentrate pricing power in the memory makers — the shortage trade inside the AI buildout, tracked separately from the optical chain so each supply cycle reads clean.
Basket total returns · Annualized using 252 trading sessions · 0% risk-free rate and downside target. As of 2026-10-21 · close.
How these statistics are calculated
Risk methodology
Sharpe: average daily simple return divided by its sample standard deviation, multiplied by √252. The risk-free rate is assumed to be 0%; this is not a cash-adjusted ratio.
Sortino: average daily simple return divided by downside deviation, multiplied by √252. Downside deviation is the square root of the average squared shortfall below 0%, counting all sessions, including zeros for gains.
Historical volatility: √(252 × average squared daily log return), matching the Vol page’s realized-volatility convention. This differs from the sample standard deviation used in Sharpe.
Each period requires complete history and at least 5 sessions. MTD and YTD follow the calendar; 1y is 252 sessions. Missing data or an undefined ratio displays — with a reason. Short periods can produce unstable ratios; intraday snapshots include a partial session. History before this basket’s creation is backtested. If a new basket has no stored daily return series yet, estimates from its rounded published chart levels are marked ≈.
Basket returns include dividends. “vs S&P 500” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
Cross-checked against SMH. Daily return correlation: 0.75 across 1710 sessions. semiconductor proxy: MU is a top-10 holding but the fund is dominated by logic and foundry — a loose fit by design
Membership history & changes
Membership history
create
Split out of the combined Optics & Memory basket on its creation day, before it shipped a live series: memory/storage and optics are distinct supply cycles (DRAM/NAND pricing vs transceiver unit growth) and deserve separate monitors. Members and rationales carried over unchanged — MU, SNDK, WDC, STX, plus RMBS in the FW 3000. The Asia memory majors (Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia) and offshore-domiciled SIMO remain outside the US-listed universes. Reference stays SMH, with the same known dilution.
The compute, networking, memory, storage, and power layer of the AI buildout. Owners of the bottlenecks: accelerators, custom silicon, switching, optics, HBM, fab equipment, test, and the server/power chain that turns capex into installed compute.
S&P 500 business models on the wrong side of AI: seat-based IT services and outsourcing, ad agencies, and data/research vendors whose products LLMs increasingly substitute. A monitoring basket (potential underperformers / hedge candidates), not a buy list. Small by design — most pure displacement stories live outside the index.
Software businesses positioned to monetize AI through existing distribution: copilots attached to installed bases, agent platforms, and the EDA/design tools that themselves get an AI productivity kicker. The bet is that distribution beats model quality.