Three Semiconductor Stocks to Consider Purchasing

04/29/2025

Semiconductors are the high-technology computer chips that facilitate artificial intelligence and a host of other capabilities from smart phones to aerospace and defense products. The fallout from President’s Trump tariffs appears far from finished with negotiations involving the leaders of roughly 150 other countries still in progress or yet to start.

Investors who want to purchase semiconductor stocks can do so at reduced prices compared to earlier this year before the tariff tumult began. The three semiconductor stocks may not have bottomed out, but they may take an upward turn in the weeks and months ahead.

Three Semiconductor Stocks to Consider Purchasing: VST

Three semiconductor stocks to consider purchasing include -based Irving, Texas-based Vistra Corp. (NYSE: VST). One fan of the company and its prospects is Mark Skousen, PhD, who heads the TNT Trader advisory service and the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter.

He has recommended Vistra in the past and is doing so again now. He praised the Fortune 500 company’s integrated retail electricity and power generation business that provides essential resources to customers, businesses and communities from California to Maine.

One of the reasons is that it provides multiple forms of energy from natural gas, coal, solar and even nuclear. Vistra even has battery storage facilities, which are key when providing electricity.

“We remain believers that nuclear energy is going to be increasingly adopted around the world as the safest and cleanest way to provide for our energy needs in this new, AI-powered world, Skousen wrote to his TNT Trader advisory service subscribers.

The company is liked by billionaire investors, with 25 of them currently heavily invested, Skousen continued. Possibly the most famous investor could be Senator Nancy Pelosi, is also an owner of Vistra stock with her money management husband.

And the company’s financial numbers look promising. It has a price/earnings (P/E) ratio of just 18, along with an earnings per share (EPS) of a $7.00 a share. Its earnings call is next week, and the average price target of analysts is $163, which would be roughly a 25% gain from its current price.

Vistra also pays a modest dividend, Skousen added.

Mark Skousen leads the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter and TNT Trader.

Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.

President Donald J. Trump joined Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM) CEO C.C. Wei on March 4 to announce a historic $100 billion investment by TSMC in its Arizona-based semiconductor chips manufacturing operation — the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. history.

This investment, when combined with the company’s prior $65 billion commitment, will fund the construction of three semiconductor fabrication plants, advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. The expansion is expected to create tens of thousands of high-tech, high-paying jobs, positioning Arizona as a key production site in the global semiconductor industry.

The jobs created at TSM will require highly skilled workers, ranging from engineers to technicians, researchers, and advanced manufacturing specialists. These are the types of high-wage positions that can boost the Arizona economy and provide new job opportunities for its residents, according to Education Forward Arizona, a Section 501(c)(3) advocacy group.

The $100 billion in new investment will go into building five cutting-edge fabrication facilities in Arizona. In total, the announcement brings Taiwan Semiconductor’s investment in Arizona to about $165 billion.

TSM CEO C.C. Wei said that his company would produce many chips to support progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and smartphones.

Three Semiconductor Stocks to Consider Purchasing: Tariff Effect

“President Trump has made it a fundamental objective to bring semiconductor chip manufacturing home to America,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a statement when the agreement was announced. Lutnick called TSM the world’s “greatest” semiconductor chip manufacturer.

Since taking office, President Trump has secured nearly $2 trillion in U.S.-based investment and is seeking to build upon it, White House officials reported.

Taiwan Semiconductor also is a major contract manufacturer of computer chips for other companies. Its headquarters and main operations are located in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

TSM is in a sweet spot, since China’s leaders don’t want to put tariffs on the company because to them its Chinese, said Robert Castellano, a semiconductor analyst who is one of the market specialists who teams up with technology futurist George Gilder on the Gilder’s Technology Report investment newsletter. President Trump doesn’t want to put tariffs on the company because it is investing more than $100 billion dollars in the United States, Castellano said.

“The time to buy is now,” Castellano counseled. “You can’t time the market.”

Skousen, who heads the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter and the TNT Trader advisory service, recommended it in the latter on March 19, 2024, when it traded at $135.42, and advised its sale on May 31, 2024, for roughly $148.00, netting a 9.29% gain.

Michelle Connell, the founder and head of Dallas-based Portia Capital Management, is a former semiconductor analyst who said it is tough to buy stocks “when everything is going down.” But money will be made by buying the higher quality names that have a “moat” or competitive edge, Connell counseled.

Michelle Connell heads Portia Capital Management.

The company’s first-quarter 2025 earnings beat expectations and its guidance was also much better than forecast with second-quarter revenue up 13% quarter over quarter at midpoint vs. the 7% predicted by JP Morgan, the investment firm wrote in an April 21 research note.

TSM has maintained its 2025 guidance, which may be an overhang, but the implied second half growth is the slowest in 10 years, which does reflect some caution regarding macro slowdown and tariffs, JP Morgan continued. The biggest positive from the call was that TSM’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. C.C. Wei summarily dispelled any involvement in a joint venture, technology transfer or IP sharing with any company, which might be Intel, leaving an overhang for the stock in the last two months, JP Morgan added.

TSM also indicated that its long-term forecasts for a 20% overall compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and mid-40% AI accelerator CAGR into 2029 remain intact, while keeping its FY capex guidance unchanged, JP Morgan noted. The stock should trade up in the near-term as management cleared the air on any joint venture involvement, although industry analysts may EPS estimates amid the market downturn, JP Morgan concluded.

Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.

Three Semiconductor Stocks to Consider Purchasing: AVGO

The third semiconductor stock to buy is Palo Alto, California-based Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) is a global infrastructure technology company that has devoted its more than 60 years of existence to bring its customers innovation, collaboration and “engineering excellence,” its officials said. Broadcom focuses on technologies that connect the world through brands such as LSI, Brocade, CA Technologies, Symantec’s enterprise security business and VMware.

The company seeks to deliver technology and category-leading semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. It also combines global scale, a broad product portfolio and operational focus to provide its customers with semiconductor and infrastructure software to build and grow successful businesses.

Even better news for price-conscious investors is that Skousen views the stock as “oversold,” and recommended it in his TNT Trader advisory service.  Skousen, a free-market economist and Presidential fellow at Chapman University, also has been named one of the top 20 living economists in the world (www.superscholar.org).

“Demand for its semiconductors has stayed high in the midst of growth in the AI sector and dealing with the trade war,” according to the April 15 edition of TNT Trader.

Connell, a CFA and president and owner of Portia Capital Management, LLC, is another advocate for Broadcom. VMWare, a recent acquisition of AVGO, is now 60% integrated, she told me.

Plus, profitability is increasing from that side of the business is riding, too, Connell counseled.

JPMorgan and Oppenheimer both have recently made AVGO one of their top semiconductor picks, she continued.

Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.

Three Semiconductor Stocks to Consider Purchasing: Geopolitcal Risk

Investors need to beware of geopolitical risk from tariff tumult to wars. Russia continues to resist any attempt to allow President Trump to broker a ceasefire from its three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.

Human rights monitors of the United Nations have documented a continued high intensity of attacks across Ukraine in April, according to the international organization with 193 member states. In the early hours of April 24, Russia launched a large-scale, coordinated attack on Kyiv, the Capitol of Ukraine, and at least eight other regions of the country using scores of munitions and missiles with 44 people requiring hospitalization, the UN reported.

“In one Kyiv location, a powerful missile directly struck a two-story residential building, razing it to the ground,” according to the United Nations. “Emergency workers continue rescue operations to reach people — possibly children — trapped beneath the rubble. Fires broke out across the city due to falling debris from intercepted missiles.

“Similar attacks occurred overnight in several regions, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv, injuring civilians. The scenes of destruction and suffering in Kyiv… reflect a deeply disturbing trend — civilians bearing the brunt of ever more intense and frequent attacks,” said Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

Between April 1 and 24, Ukraine verified 848 civilian casualties, with 151 killed and 697 injured, a 46% increase compared to the same period last year, according to the UN. The verification process is still ongoing, with casualty numbers expected to rise, it added.

In addition to the military combat there and elsewhere in the world, tariffs add to investment risk. A baseline 10% tariff that went into effect on April 5 still remains in place for all affected imports into the United States. President Trump’s aggressive leadership style has been modified in recent days by him voicing a willingness to negotiate with other heads of state. Market observers are watching whether new trade agreements can be forged.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Crain Communications, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Paul can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, and is the editor and a columnist at StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com. He also serves as editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C. In that role, he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free weekly e-letters and other reports. Previously, Paul served as business editor and a columnist at Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper and as a reporter at the Baltimore Business Journal. Plus, Paul is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The uplifting book is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many other sports figures. To buy signed and specially dedicated copies, call 202-677-4457.