New York, February 22, 2026, 12:44 EST — The session’s over.
Applied Materials ended Friday up 1.5%, settling at $375.38. The chip-equipment maker has now gained for five sessions straight, leaving shares just 0.25% shy of their 52-week peak. Roughly 8.2 million shares changed hands—slightly topping the 50-day average. Wall Street, for its part, closed out the session broadly higher.
U.S. markets are closed for the weekend, leaving the stock set up for Monday with plenty riding on AI hardware optimism. This week, investors are eyeing a key AI bellwether’s earnings—results that could shake up chip demand forecasts and the outlook for equipment spending.
The other key support for the tape: Applied’s own guidance. Earlier this month, the company put out a second-quarter sales forecast of roughly $7.65 billion, give or take $500 million, and guided for adjusted earnings of about $2.64 a share, swinging past analyst estimates tracked by LSEG. For the first quarter, revenue landed at $7.01 billion, with adjusted profit at $2.38 per share. “Fueled by the acceleration of industry investments in AI computing,” CEO Gary Dickerson said of the results. Timm Schulze-Melander at Rothschild & Co. Redburn called memory and logic-foundry capex “two sides of the same coin.” Reuters
Heading into the weekend, the rest of the sector followed suit. Lam Research jumped 3.2%, while KLA added 1.8% during Friday’s regular hours—chip equipment stocks staying aligned as investors returned to cyclicals linked with data centers.
Right now, traders are looking past last quarter’s numbers, zeroing in on what’s coming down the pipeline. Any signal of tighter memory supply, acceleration in AI server build-outs, or increased spending on advanced packaging is enough to keep the “tools up” trade in play for Applied and similar names.
Export restrictions and the company’s ties to China aren’t going away. Applied Materials ended up settling with the U.S. Commerce Department for $252 million after the agency accused it of illegally shipping chipmaking gear to China’s SMIC. The incident has left compliance and licensing issues front and center.
Disappointment is another risk. Equipment stocks trading close to their highs can take a hit fast if AI demand shows up softer than feared, or if customers start delaying purchases.
Monday, and the days to follow, put a spotlight on Applied—investors are eyeing whether it can stick close to its highs absent any new headlines from the company. The rest of the semiconductor sector, too, faces a test: can it stay steady if the big tech names start to slip? These stocks usually move together when the mood on risk changes.
All eyes now turn to Nvidia, with earnings due Wednesday, February 25. The company’s conference call kicks off at 5 p.m. ET, and the numbers—along with any fresh guidance—tend to serve as a key gauge for AI-related hardware demand up and down the supply chain.
