Making semiconductors become the "most crowded trade" as global institutions jump out of the "herd" seeking niche directions.

Bank of America's latest survey shows that "long semiconductor" has become one of the most crowded trades in the global market. At the same time, well-known Wall Street investor Michael Barry and Cathy Wood, founder of Ark Invest, have successively taken short positions on leading semiconductor stocks such as Nvidia, further intensifying doubts about the sustainability of the AI boom in the market. In the A-share market, the semiconductor sector also faces the pressure of high concentration of public fund holdings. Industry insiders believe that the key to determining the turning point in the market lies in whether AI capital expenditure can be sustained and whether downstream demand can form an ROI loop. Against this background, institutions generally believe that, rather than blindly being long or short, it is better to explore alpha opportunities in the crowded field by focusing on niche areas such as storage chips, semiconductor equipment, and undervalued PCB sectors.