New York, Feb 13, 2026, 10:05 a.m. EST — Regular session on the tape.
- Shares of Applied Materials jumped roughly 11% after the company’s latest quarterly results and guidance came in ahead of forecasts.
- The chip-equipment maker is looking for second-quarter revenue to come in around $7.65 billion, give or take $500 million, with adjusted earnings pegged at about $2.64 per share, plus or minus 20 cents. Both figures top LSEG’s projections.
- In a separate disclosure, the company said it made a $252.5 million one-off payment tied to a U.S. export-controls investigation. According to BIS, the probe centered on unlawful shipments of ion implanters that went through Korea.
Applied Materials Inc jumped roughly 11% to $365 during Friday morning trading. The semiconductor equipment maker projected second-quarter sales and earnings that topped Wall Street forecasts.
Investors are watching the outlook as a signal for what’s next in chipmaking spend, with AI data-center expansion continuing to drive orders for advanced manufacturing and high-end memory. Tight memory supply is also pushing some chipmakers to rethink capacity plans, fueling fresh demand for equipment.
Traders are favoring equipment stocks, betting that AI spending won’t be just a flash in the pan but will stretch across several years. SEMI’s most recent industry outlook, published in December, put 2026 wafer-fab equipment sales near $126 billion, according to Reuters.
Applied, the top U.S. chip equipment supplier, is calling for second-quarter revenue around $7.65 billion, give or take $500 million. Analysts, per LSEG, were looking for $7.01 billion. Adjusted earnings? Applied sees roughly $2.64 per share, plus or minus 20 cents—ahead of the $2.28 consensus.
Applied reported quarterly revenue of $7.01 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $2.38 for the period ending Jan. 25, topping analyst projections, according to Reuters. The company called out robust demand for DRAM — dynamic random access memory — and put a spotlight on high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the advanced stacked DRAM tech that speeds up data movement for AI chips.
CEO Gary Dickerson pointed to a quarter “fueled by the acceleration of industry investments in AI computing,” as appetite increased for more power-efficient chips in logic, memory and advanced packaging. Logic chips—think CPUs and GPUs—are the engines behind compute workloads. Reuters
Rothschild & Co. Redburn analyst Timm Schulze-Melander called memory and logic-foundry capex growth “two sides of the same coin.” By his read, capital spending on memory stands out as the main near-term force. Reuters
Chip-equipment stocks caught some of the momentum. Lam Research climbed about 2.9%. KLA tacked on close to 1%, and shares of ASML traded in the U.S. nudged upward as well.
Still, the run-up doesn’t leave much margin for error. Any quicker loosening in memory supply, a slowdown in hyperscaler budgets, or new U.S. export restrictions could quickly dent orders and pressure margins for toolmakers exposed to China supply chains.
Applied agreed to a $252.5 million one-off payment to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, according to a company filing, and will conduct internal audits of its export controls. The filing noted the DOJ and SEC have both wrapped up their probes with no enforcement actions. The BIS described the case as centering on ion implanters that were assembled in Korea, then shipped to China without the required export license—goods worth about $126 million.
Now, attention turns to whether chipmakers stick to their spending plans and if there’s any movement on export enforcement. Applied’s next earnings are on deck for May 14.
