NEW YORK, Feb 19, 2026, 17:51 ET — After-hours
- AVGO finished the session at $333.99, ticking up 0.1%. Shares barely budged in after-hours action.
- Broadcom rolled out BroadPeak, a radio chip designed for massive MIMO base stations with 6G in mind and a focus on reducing power consumption.
- Eyes turn to Friday’s PCE inflation data, with Broadcom also set to deliver its earnings update in early March.
Broadcom ended Thursday up just 0.1% at $333.99, after shares swung from $329.89 to $338.39. Roughly 15.1 million shares traded hands. After hours, the stock held steady, following the company’s launch of a new radio chip aimed at 6G cellular base stations.
The launch comes as investors scrutinize anything related to network expansion—AI-fueled data centers, carrier infrastructure upgrades, all in focus. Broadcom has played up that spending angle, yet any weakness in demand or margins has been met with fast market backlash.
Tech shares dragged U.S. stocks down on Thursday, leaving the market in the red by the bell. “Not everyone’s going to win and not all expectations are going to be met,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments, as investors picked over AI valuation concerns and looked ahead to Friday’s PCE inflation data. Reuters
Broadcom rolled out its BroadPeak BCM85021, calling it a radio “digital front-end” system-on-chip — these are the signal-processing and data-conversion pieces that sit near the antenna — and it’s purpose-built for massive MIMO, a setup that leverages multiple antennas to move higher volumes of data wirelessly. The company is touting this as the first 6G digital front-end SoC for massive MIMO, able to cover frequencies from 400 MHz up through 8.5 GHz, including the n104 band, which comes into play for 5G Advanced. Power consumption drops as much as 40% compared to current offerings, Broadcom said. “The infrastructure behind it must evolve,” noted Vijay Janapaty, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Physical Layer Products Division. Businessinsider
Broadcom said it has begun shipping samples to early-access customers and partners, aiming the chip at 5G Advanced spectrum and the early stages of 6G planning. “The industry requires deep, open, and highly optimized partnerships,” said Raghib Hussain, president and chief executive of Altera, which reported that it has validated interoperability with Broadcom’s device. Stock Titan
The stock barely budged, echoing uneven action across chipmakers. Nvidia closed almost unchanged, Qualcomm slipped over 1%. The S&P 500 dropped 0.28%.
Broadcom’s software arm, with VMware at its core, continues to face tough scrutiny over pricing and whether customers will stick around. According to a CloudBolt survey, 86% of enterprise respondents are dialing back their VMware usage. “There is no such thing as a frictionless migration,” Matt Kimball, vice president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, pointed out. Network World
Telecom’s running into a familiar snag for 6G chatter—carriers keep stretching out upgrade cycles, and fresh standards rarely translate into big orders right away. For Broadcom, what matters now is locking in design wins and getting production up to speed, not just shipping out early samples.
Broadcom’s next earnings report and call is set for March 4. Traders are watching for what executives say about demand patterns in both semiconductors and software.
