New York, Feb 7, 2026, 15:10 EST — The market has closed.
- Lam Research ended Friday’s session up 8.3% at $231.01. The stock barely moved after hours.
- Chipmakers and equipment names bounced, with traders circling back to AI plays.
- Traders are eyeing next week: the U.S. jobs report lands Feb. 11, with CPI numbers set to follow on Feb. 13—fresh macro hurdles on the calendar.
Lam Research Corp (LRCX.O) surged 8.3% Friday, finishing up at $231.01. After the bell, the stock barely budged, ticking down to $230.96.
U.S. markets are closed for the weekend, leaving investors to wonder if Friday’s rally can hold up when trading resumes Monday. Lam, which supplies equipment for semiconductor manufacturing, tends to move in step with spending on AI data centers and memory factories.
The Dow cracked 50,000 for the first time on Friday’s risk-on rally, while chip shares surged: the PHLX semiconductor index shot up 5.7% as Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom all advanced. “Real demand for AI products” is showing up, even through the recent pullbacks, noted Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird. Amazon lost ground after it warned that capital expenditures—money going into data centers and related infrastructure—are set to leap more than 50%. Reuters
Chip-equipment stocks followed suit, with Applied Materials climbing roughly 6.1% Friday and KLA up 8.4%. The gains gave the group a boost.
Shares of Lam bounced from $218.76 up to $232.45 during the session, with nearly 13.3 million shares moving, based on figures from its investor-relations page.
Late Thursday, the company tacked on a headline about returning cash to shareholders: its board signed off on a quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share. Lam set April 8 as the payment date for holders of record as of March 4.
Thursday brought a fresh regulatory filing: Senior Vice President Seshasayee Varadarajan picked up 53,925 shares on Feb. 3 by exercising or converting equity awards, according to a Form 4. The reported price? $0.
January earnings are setting the tone right now. Lam is looking at $5.7 billion in revenue for the current quarter, give or take $300 million. Adjusted earnings? $1.35 a share, swinging 10 cents either side. CEO Tim Archer highlighted the industry’s move into “smaller, more complex” devices. Reuters
Friday brought another signal on demand. The Semiconductor Industry Association now sees global chip sales hitting $1 trillion this year, up from $791.7 billion in 2025. SIA CEO John Neuffer told Reuters, “my orders are completely full.” Reuters
The trade’s unpredictable. A hotter inflation print, or a pullback in Big Tech’s hefty AI spending, and equipment stocks like Lam could lose ground just as fast as they climbed.
All eyes now shift to Wednesday, when January’s U.S. jobs report hits at 8:30 a.m. ET, with January CPI set to follow Friday at the same hour. Both could shake up expectations on rates and tech sentiment. The Labor Department has the releases down for Feb. 11 and Feb. 13.
