Cadence Design Systems is the tollbooth of chip design: nobody builds an AI processor without first paying for EDA software, a duopoly market. That shows in 88.9% gross margins and eight straight years of 16–21% EPS growth without a down year. It ranks first and is the highest-conviction name on the software map, with a 96.8 story score, 90.5 chart score and 93.6 composite; with both above 90, the argument is over. The stock sits about 2% from a fresh pivot. x.com  x.com 

Demand for chip-design software is booming, making Synopsys the chip-design name to own after Cadence's results. Cadence reported a record $8.2 billion backlog and raised its 2026 revenue-growth outlook to 21%; Synopsys is still about 12% below its May high, and all four models signal Long on Synopsys versus Flat on Cadence. x.com 

Synopsys and Cadence are shorts while ASIC design houses Global Unichip and Alchip are longs, because hyperscalers are taking chip IP design in-house. Synopsys design IP income fell 48% in Q1 to $66.1M, yet EDA trades near 70x earnings after losing China. Megacap seat counts are flat to down as AI makes engineers 2-3x more productive; Google TPU, AWS Trainium and other ASICs sold Cadence no new seats. Global Unichip revenue is up 60%, and Alchip, working on Trainium, is the highest-beta long. … Show more

Lam Research's record results suggest the equipment cycle is not ending despite its stock selloff. Revenue reached $8.22B, up 54% year over year and over 20% sequentially, while EPS rose 75%; ASML and TSMC also report customers needing more tools. Overweight with a $355 target and 35% upside, but the selloff is a gift only if Lam guides December higher. x.com  x.com 

ASML's planned 2027-28 output cannot meet customer demand, supporting a Buy rating and €1,830 target. Long-term customer down payments rose from €3.6bn to €9.3bn; customers seek 2029-30 orders that ASML has not accepted. Critical-tool price rises begin in 2027, with full effect in 2028, but are not meant to recur annually. Q3 EPS excluding a €509.7m investment gain still beat consensus. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

LLM-driven hardware verification is generally bearish for Synopsys and Cadence, but not predictably enough in the short term to justify betting against them. A post being answered argues verification is the cleanest monetization path for the new LLM capability, with private math pure plays Harmonic and Axiom Math likely to target it, so sentiment on both should worsen. The development is broadly bullish for compute. x.com 

Accelerating earnings mean ASML is not expensive right now. It trades at 24x forward earnings and 19x forward EV/EBITDA. x.com 

Semiconductor leaders look better placed than high-beta stocks with poor company models. TSMC, ASML, Nvidia and memory should lead the sector and belong in the buy basket, with Broadcom not far behind. The CPU basket is only a hold: much of its upside was priced in during Intel and AMD's run. x.com 

Synopsys and Cadence face a net competitive negative if large chip designers build custom verification tools in-house, taking share of the largest slice of the EDA workflow. The market will likely sell the incumbents as this gets digested. Offsetting that, faster time to market is becoming table stakes, raising both the value of agentic design tools and the cost of failure. @lokoyacap counters that nothing shows EDA being made unnecessary and that it supports pricier AI-enabled seats. x.com  … Show more

ASML's tightened sales guidance raises the floor for its growth outlook as management has become more confident in this year's forecast. Analyst targets imply 35.7% upside from here. x.com