Rebound in Tech Stocks Pushes the S&P Technology Sector Up 42% in The First Half of 2023

The S&P 500 information technology sector that includes Apple (up 49.29% YTD), Microsoft (up 42% YTD) and Nvidia (up 189.46% YTD in the wake of ChatGPT), was the best performer over the last six months with a remarkable performance of 42.06% as of 30 June, offsetting the losses suffered in 2022 (-28.91%) when it lagged the broader market. This is the only S&P 500 sector to have already recouped its 2022 losses.

Despite a somewhat pessimistic outlook regarding interest rate hikes, tech stocks managed to exceed market expectations. As a result, technology-aligned ETFs posted remarkable gains this year, up +39.68% on average, with significant inflows of $405 million over the week.

The week’s best performing themes were Next Generation Internet (+4.78%), FinTech (+3.94%), and Cybersecurity (+3.29%). It’s worth noting that semiconductor funds also appear to be on the rise despite potential restrictions on U.S. chip exports to China being considered by Washington. As an illustration, the SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) gained +6.54%.