New York, February 23, 2026, 10:59 (ET) — Regular session
Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) shares rose about 0.4% to $333.83 in morning trading on Monday, after swinging between $328.18 and $338.39 earlier in the session. The stock opened at $332.51 and traded on volume of about 4.2 million shares.
The move is small, but it lands in an ugly spot on the calendar. Chip stocks are trying to find their feet again, and Broadcom sits close to the fault lines: data-center spending, telecom capex and enterprise software budgets.
Broadcom’s price action is also getting pulled around by politics and the biggest names in AI hardware. U.S. stocks fell after President Donald Trump announced a new 15% global tariff following a Supreme Court ruling on Friday that voided most of his earlier levies. “You simply can’t bet against Trump. He wants tariffs, and he’s going to find a way to implement them,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital LLC. Nvidia was higher ahead of quarterly earnings due on Wednesday, Reuters reported. (Reuters)
For Broadcom, investors keep coming back to the same questions: whether cloud customers stay aggressive on AI infrastructure, and whether networking silicon can keep growing even if spending gets more selective. There’s not much patience right now for missed signals.
The software side adds another layer. Broadcom’s infrastructure software unit — built around VMware — ties the company more tightly to corporate IT budgets, where renewals and pricing are as important as chip shipments.
On the product front, Broadcom last week announced BroadPeak, a radio digital front-end system-on-chip (SoC) aimed at 5G Advanced and early 6G wireless gear. Broadcom said the chip targets massive MIMO — large antenna arrays used to lift network capacity — and can cut power use by up to 40% versus existing solutions. “The BroadPeak SoC … [delivers] up to 40% greater efficiency for next-generation base stations,” said Vijay Janapaty, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Physical Layer Products Division. (GlobeNewswire)
But the upside case has a thin edge, and it has before. In December, Broadcom warned that a growing mix of lower-margin custom AI processors was squeezing profitability, a reminder that bigger AI revenue does not always translate into fatter margins. “Right now, the spending intentions still seem so big by so many, hitting that panic button is premature,” said Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Melius Research. (Reuters)
Tariffs add another variable on top of that, especially for hardware supply chains and customers who buy in big cycles. If policy details stay murky, traders tend to shoot first and sort it out later.
The next hard catalyst for AVGO is its earnings report. Broadcom is scheduled to report first-quarter fiscal 2026 results on March 4 after the market closes, followed by a conference call at 5 p.m. ET. (Stock Titan)
