All four US semiconductor ETFs — XSD, SOXX, SMH and SMHX — closed Monday sitting back on the rising trendline drawn from their April lows. Four different construction methods, four different weighting schemes, one shared line.
That is why a four-panel grid runs with this edition rather than a single chart. When an equal-weighted small-and-mid fund, a mega-cap-weighted fund, a classic large-cap semiconductor fund and a fabless-only fund all sit on the same trendline in the same session, the touch is a property of the complex rather than of any one construction. From here the geometry offers two outcomes and no third: a bounce off the line, or a break of the trend with a move back toward the end-of-July lows.
This edition is a description of that setup. Where each fund sits, how it got there in Monday’s session, which two events fall inside the window that resolves it, and what the marked levels are on both sides. All figures are close-to-close through Monday’s US close unless the line says otherwise.
Four funds, one line
XSD (SPDR S&P Semiconductor, equal-weight, small/mid tilt) 481.60 · Mon −3.34% · 1y +78.28% · Jul-29 close 449.41 (−6.7% from here)
SOXX (iShares Semiconductor) 506.18 · Mon −2.67% · 1y +104.54% · Jul-29 close 465.00 (−8.1%)
SMH (VanEck Semiconductor, mega-cap weighted) 546.80 · Mon −2.43% · 1y +86.62% · Jul-29 close 504.22 (−7.8%)
SMHX (VanEck Fabless Semiconductor) 53.77 · Mon −2.92% · 1y +53.14% · Jul-29 close 50.94 (−5.3%) · closes through 2026-08-24
The line dates from April. Each of these four funds turned in that month and has climbed a rising trendline since, and Monday’s session put all four back down onto it together. Monday’s losses were tightly clustered — 3.34%, 2.67%, 2.43%, 2.92% — which is itself part of the picture: nothing in the complex was spared and nothing was singled out.
The one-year column is the size of what is being tested. SOXX has added 104.54% over that window, SMH 86.62%, XSD 78.28%, SMHX 53.14%. The trendline under review is the one that produced those numbers, which is why the touch is worth recording rather than shrugging at.
XSD is the panel that reads breadth. Equal weighting gives a small manufacturer the same say as a mega-cap, so the fund tracks the average semiconductor stock rather than the largest ones — and it has been the weaker of the four recently, now trading below a former support shelf around 550 that used to act as its floor. SMHX, the fabless-only cut, carries the smallest one-year number and sits closest to its July low at 5.3%.
The downside map is unusually tidy. All four funds printed their end-of-July low on the same day, 2026-07-29: XSD 449.41, SOXX 465.00, SMH 504.22, SMHX 50.94. Measured from Monday’s closes that is between 5.3% and 8.1% of air below the current line. Those are the marked shelves the diary will read against if the trend gives way — not forecasts, just the last place the complex stopped.
How the complex got to the line
NVDA Mon −2.91% — the only red mega-cap
MSFT +0.84% · GOOGL +0.94% · AMZN +1.33% · META +1.66% · AAPL +0.32%
DRAM (memory) 54.28 −5.89%
COHR 275.49 −4.85% · LITE 830.17 −4.22% · FN 421.14 −3.56% · AMAT 484.19 −1.65%
XLK 180.05 −1.78% · second close under the 50-day at 183.04
IGV −0.89% · CLOU −1.25%
The session’s single most legible moment belonged to SOXX. Midday it pierced to 500.84, below the 505 line this page has tracked as its wave-count trigger, and then recovered to close at 506.18. Pierce and recover: the level was touched, the close was not surrendered, and the trigger is not cashed. That is the whole event, and it is why the trendline test is still open rather than already answered.
One rung up in the sector, the technology fund gave a cleaner answer. XLK closed at 180.05, down 1.78%, its second consecutive close beneath its 50-day average at 183.04. The diary recorded that as a confirmed rejection of the moving average — a second close does what a single close cannot.
Inside the complex the damage was concentrated where the cycle is most physical. The memory fund fell 5.89% to 54.28, the largest drop among the complex-adjacent funds. Optics and the supply chain followed: Coherent 4.85% lower to 275.49, Lumentum 4.22% to 830.17, Fabrinet 3.56% to 421.14, while Applied Materials held its loss to 1.65% at 484.19.
Software fell, but it fell less. IGV was down 0.89% and CLOU 1.25% — roughly a third of what the hardware side gave up. That gap is the most descriptive feature of the day: the selling was aimed at the build-out and the physical chain, not at technology as a category.
And Nvidia was alone. It closed down 2.91% while Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple all finished green. On a day when five of the six largest technology names rose, the sixth — the one reporting on Wednesday — was the one that fell. That is a print-specific discount, visible in the tape rather than inferred from it.
Two clocks inside one week
The first clock is Nvidia, reporting Wednesday, August 26, after the US close. It goes into that print already down 2.91% on Monday while its mega-cap peers closed higher, so the market has done some of its positioning in advance. The report lands after hours on Wednesday, which means the complex trades Thursday on a number it has not been able to price during a session.
The second clock is macro and it opens the moment the first one closes. Jackson Hole runs Thursday, August 27 through Saturday, August 29 — Kevin Warsh’s first symposium as Fed chair, with the keynote scheduled for Friday, August 28. A new chair’s first appearance at the symposium is a regime event by construction: the market has no prior of him in that specific chair on that specific stage.
The two sit on opposite sides of the same trendline test. One is company-specific and arrives Wednesday night; the other is rate-and-regime and arrives Friday. Between them they cover the second half of the week that the semiconductor complex has to spend standing on its line.
Today’s calendar is quieter and still worth noting. German Ifo prints at 08:00 UTC with consensus at 87.2 against a previous 86.6, and US Conference Board Consumer Confidence follows at 14:00 UTC, consensus 90.3 against 90.8 prior. This page also scores Walmart’s print record this morning — its report came last Thursday and the 9.15% print-day punishment held, which is what enters the record.
Bounce or break: the level map
The bounce case has two markers. The first is the April trendline itself, which all four funds are currently resting on; the second is SOXX holding above 505, the line it pierced to 500.84 on Monday and closed back above. As long as those two hold on a closing basis, the complex is doing what a trend does when it is tested — coming back to the line and leaving from it.
The break case has four markers, and they are the July 29 closes: XSD 449.41, SOXX 465.00, SMH 504.22, SMHX 50.94. A close through the trendline, and through 505 on SOXX, puts those on the board as the next recorded shelf, 5.3% to 8.1% below where the funds closed Monday. Nothing between here and there has been marked, which is part of why the geometry reads binary.
The wider tape sits in the middle of its own frame. The S&P 500 closed at 7,652.86, down 0.28%, the Nasdaq-100 at 29,023.18, down 0.97%, and QQQ at 706.32, down 1.00% — mid-frame between this page’s standing 694 and 746 wave rails, touching neither. VIX rose 4.76% to 15.85, a move within a low band rather than out of it.
Beneath the index level the tape’s lean was the same one it had on Friday. The ex-tech pairs won the day again: SPXT gained 0.42% while SPY lost 0.29%, and QQXT held +0.02% against QQQ’s −1.00%. The factor spread pointed the same way, with momentum (SPMO) down 1.74% against low volatility (SPLV) up 1.12%. Strip the chips out of an index and it stopped falling.
The Closelook family read the same split. Rubin 100 equal-weight closed at 1,914.84, down 2.19%, carrying its build-out weighting; HALO 100 equal-weight at 1,094.32, down 0.68%; AEI equal-weight at 1,512.66, down 3.24%. AW40 equal-weight was the only green index of the four at 937.23, up 0.37%. The Money Temperature composite sits at 55 — the band the lab labels regime uncertainty, which is a fair description of a market waiting on two events.
Overnight the tone was mildly constructive: US futures green with NQ up 0.32% and ES up 0.09%, Asia quiet with the Nikkei up 0.26% and the KOSPI down 0.23%, as the Morning 10 logged at 05:06 UTC. Bitcoin took 80,000 overnight, trading 80,484 and up 1.9%, after Monday’s close had refused the level — the hard-asset bid from yesterday’s edition still running alongside the chip question.
SOXX against 505 and the trendline — Monday’s 500.84 pierce did not close below. A daily close under 505, and under the April line, is the marker that turns the test from open to resolved.
Nvidia, Wednesday after the close — the only red mega-cap on Monday goes into its print with a discount already in the tape. The complex trades Thursday on a number it could not price live.
Warsh, Friday — the keynote on August 28, inside a symposium running Thursday to Saturday, is the first read of this chair on that stage.
The July 29 closes — XSD 449.41, SOXX 465.00, SMH 504.22, SMHX 50.94, all printed the same day. They are the recorded downside markers if the line gives way, between 5.3% and 8.1% below Monday.
One page, one read: four funds built four different ways arrived at the same rising line in the same session, and that agreement is what makes this test legible rather than noisy. The tape went into it already leaning defensive — ex-tech pairs beating their parents for a second day, low volatility beating momentum, and the only green house index the one that is not build-out heavy. What the diary cannot know is which way a trendline resolves, and this week hands that answer to two events rather than to the chart. The levels above are markers to read against, not positions to take. Probability, not prophecy.