NEW YORK, February 20, 2026, 11:02 (EST) — Regular session
- Applied Materials shares climbed roughly 1% late in the morning, moving between $366.64 and $376.93.
- The Thursday filing included a $253 million legal settlement charge. China? Still accounts for 30% of quarterly revenue.
- Nvidia’s numbers are due next Wednesday, and traders are zeroing in on them for any signals about AI-related chip demand.
Applied Materials (AMAT.O) gained around 1% Friday, last changing hands at $373.39. Shares bounced between $366.64 and $376.93 as the session wore on.
Chip-equipment makers have become a straightforward play on capex—specifically, new plants and AI server upgrades. The group’s been rallying, but a more difficult test is just ahead in the coming days.
Nvidia is set to release its results Wednesday, and what it says about the outlook could shake up the entire AI hardware sector. “It’s hard for Nvidia to surprise when everyone expects it to surprise,” said Marta Norton, chief investment strategist at Empower. Reuters
Applied’s latest quarterly filing, released Thursday, logged a $253 million hit from a legal settlement and quarterly revenue of $7.012 billion—off about 2% from the same stretch last year. Sales in China came in at $2.095 billion, making up 30% of the total, while Taiwan revenue jumped 46% to $1.722 billion. According to the filing, demand from foundry and logic customers—those making computing chips—eased for trailing-edge tools, or older-node equipment. Gains in DRAM and increased services business helped cushion the dip.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced earlier this month that the settlement involves illegal exports of ion implanter gear to China, sent via Korea. The civil penalty clocks in at roughly $252 million, with the company also facing mandatory audits of its export compliance program, according to BIS.
Last week, Applied projected second-quarter revenue at roughly $7.65 billion, give or take $500 million, with adjusted earnings of about $2.64 per share, plus or minus 20 cents. “Memory and logic-foundry capex growth are two sides of the same coin,” Rothschild & Co. Redburn analyst Timm Schulze-Melander said. Reuters
Chip-equipment stocks mostly climbed Friday. Lam Research advanced almost 3%. KLA and ASML each added roughly 1%. Nvidia ticked up as well.
AI stocks kept buzzing after word got out that Nvidia was nearing a massive $30 billion investment in OpenAI, tied to a fundraising round that might peg the AI startup’s valuation near $830 billion. That kind of money only reinforces the sense that AI infrastructure spending isn’t slowing down.
The stock’s valuation counts on consistent execution. A whiff of slowing AI demand, stricter China restrictions, or clients pushing out fab construction—any of it could pressure tool orders and cut into margins.
Nvidia reports on Wednesday, Feb. 25. All eyes will be on CEO Jensen Huang’s comments about demand. For Applied and the rest of its peer group, that’s the signal for where chip capex could go next.
