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Chips

How pricey are chips

Is Nvidia the chip bubble? By forward P/E it's one of the cheapest big chip stocks. Intel and AMD are the big bubbles.

Numbers as of 17 Sept 2026

The full story

  1. Eight bubbles sized by forward P/E, the price paid per dollar of profit expected over the next 12 months: Intel 69x, AMD 51x, ASML 30x, TSMC 21x, Broadcom 20x, Qualcomm 20x, Nvidia 18x, Micron 7x. A bigger bubble means you pay more for each dollar of profit.
  2. Biggest bubble: Intel, at 69 times expected profit. Its share price went from 29 dollars in September 2025 to 124 dollars. Over 12 months it lost 20.5 billion dollars a year ago and 11.3 billion dollars now, most of it a paper charge. The US government bought about 10 percent for 8.9 billion dollars
  3. Second biggest bubble: AMD at 51 times expected profit. Its share price went from 160 dollars in September 2025 to 624 dollars, and profit over 12 months went from 2.8 billion to 6.4 billion dollars. OpenAI agreed in October 2025 to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD chips, the first gigawatt from late 2026,
  4. Third biggest bubble: ASML at 30 times expected profit. Its share price went from 958 dollars in September 2025 to 1,748 dollars, up 82 percent, while profit over 12 months went from 9.4 billion to 10.6 billion euros, up 13 percent. It is the only maker of EUV machines, and in July 2026 it raised it
  5. Fourth biggest bubble: TSMC at 21 times expected profit. Its share price went from 273 dollars in September 2025 to 452 dollars, up 66 percent, and profit over 12 months went from 1.46 trillion to 2.24 trillion Taiwan dollars, up 53 percent. Profit in the quarter to 30 June 2026 was up 77 percent fr
  6. Tied at 20 times expected profit: Broadcom. Its share price rose 8 percent, from 339 dollars in September 2025 to 365 dollars, while profit over 12 months doubled from 18.9 billion to 38.3 billion dollars. AI chip sales were 16.7 billion dollars in the quarter to 2 August 2026, up 221 percent, and O
  7. Tied at 20 times expected profit: Qualcomm. Its share price went from 170 dollars in September 2025 to 198 dollars, up 17 percent, while profit over 12 months fell from 11.6 billion to 9.3 billion dollars. In the quarter to June 2026, car chip sales rose 61 percent to a record 1.59 billion dollars,
  8. Second smallest bubble: Nvidia at 18 times expected profit. Its share price went from 184 dollars in September 2025 to 229 dollars, up 25 percent, while profit over 12 months went from 86.6 billion to 193 billion dollars. Sales were 96.2 billion dollars in the quarter to 26 July 2026, up 106 percent
  9. Smallest bubble: Micron at 7 times expected profit. Its share price went from 165 dollars in September 2025 to 1,096 dollars, the biggest rise of the eight, but profit over 12 months went from 6.2 billion to 50.5 billion dollars. Its AI memory is sold out for 2026 under contract, and memory profits
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Which bubble did you expect to be biggest?

Each bubble is forward P/E: the share price divided by the profit analysts expect over the next 12 months. Bigger bubble, more you pay for each $1 of profit.

In Sep 2023, the S&P 500's chip stocks averaged 23.5x. Their 10-year average was 16.5x.

Nvidia sits at about 17x today, below that 2023 level.

Intel is the biggest at about 59x. Its share price roughly tripled since Sep 2023, while its expected profit is still small.

Micron is about 6x, because analysts expect memory profits to keep climbing.

The catch: these are estimates. If the profit doesn't arrive, a small bubble gets bigger fast. Sources disagree by a few points - AMD is 41x to 46x depending on who you ask.

Save this and check it again next earnings season.

Want to see how this looks now?

When enough people ask, we re-check the numbers and redraw it.

Where the numbers come from

Show all 5 sources

Companies in this picture

AMDASMLBroadcomIntelMicronNvidiaQualcommTSMC

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