INTC, SNDK, AMD Rallies Put Nasdaq On Track For Best Month In Nearly Four Years

• Nasdaq’s monthly gains are the most since July 2022.
• SanDisk, Seagate, Micron, and Western Digital feature in the top six index gainers in April.
• The Nasdaq-100’s top five by weight—Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet—are led this month by Amazon, up 20%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index has gained 11% so far in April and is on track to register its best month in nearly four years and the best April performance in forty years.

Historically, April is often cited as one of the strongest months for the Nasdaq. The index has shown a strong tendency toward positive growth this month, often fueled by Q1 earnings reports and "spring rally" sentiment.

This time around, the rally is already strong just as the earnings season kicks off. Investors are doubling down on chip companies, with the memory chip stocks seeing an unprecedented run.

SanDisk has gained 44% so far in April, while Seagate and Micron have gained 37% and 36%, respectively, as the massive buildout by new data centers have led to shortages and higher pricing of memory components.

However, leading Nasdaq gainers is Intel. The company was struggling until the start of last year, when it kicked off a major turnaround under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

Intel, which has risen 55% to a fresh record, is showing progress in its foundry business – long a source of concern – with the release of PC chips using its advanced 18A process and a steady stream of high-profile partnerships across cloud and AI customers.

On Thursday, Intel hired Samsung Foundry head Shawn Han as the general manager of the chip-maker’s foundry services, a move that signals a greater push to win foundry customers. Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices is only a notch behind, with 37% month-to-date gains.

Consequently, the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq, is up 3.3% year to date, compared with the 2% gains in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).

Based on weightage, the top five firms in the Nasdaq-100 are Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. Among them, Amazon has gained the strongest this month with a 20% gain.

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