The shift from April levels suggests the AI trade is diverging, with heavy corporate spenders and semiconductor stocks no longer moving in tandem.
The 30-day correlation between the largest US CapEx spenders and the SOX semiconductor index has dropped to near zero from +0.78 in April, signaling a sharp breakdown in how two key parts of the AI trade have been moving together. The move suggests investors are no longer treating companies driving heavy capital expenditure (CapEx, corporate spending on long-term assets) and chipmakers as the same market bet. In practice, that points to a split between businesses funding AI buildouts and the semiconductor stocks that had previously traded closely alongside them.