Chipmaker X-FAB surges in retail-driven rally as chip frenzy builds

[출처/시간] Reuters - 8:02 AM ET, 05/27/2026

By Ozan Ergenay and Danilo Masoni

GDANSK/MILAN, May 27 (Reuters) - Shares ?of European chipmaker X-FAB jumped as much ?as 76% on Wednesday, driven by retail ?buying amplified by a viral social media post, the latest sign of chip sector frenzy. There was no obvious specific news behind the surge, but traders cited a post on platform X from the handle Serenity that highlighted X-FAB as an "interesting long idea" tied to photonics and power semiconductors.

"It's being pushed on X," said Stephane Ekolo, equity strategist at TFS Derivatives in London.

X-FAB ?was not immediately available for comment. The same handle, also known ?as @aleabitoreddit, ?has previously been linked to sharp gains in UK computer ?hardware firm Raspberry Pi in February. Since then, its followers have grown to more than 411,000 from around 58,000.

Retail flows appeared to ?dominate activity, with ?X-FAB among the most traded stocks on Germany's ?Tradegate platform, ranking second behind U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology and ?ahead of Germany’s Infineon.

Paris-listed X-FAB pared gains after briefly reaching ?a market ?capitalisation of around 2.06 billion euros ($2.4 billion), ?roughly three times its value at the start ?of 2026. By 1127 GMT, the stock was up 35%. The spike comes against a strong broader rally in semiconductor stocks, ?fuelled by expectations that ?AI will drive sustained demand.

SK Hynix topped $1 ?trillion in market value for the first time on Wednesday, joining ?its memory chip peers Samsung Electronics and Micron.

($1 = 0.8593 euros) (Reporting by Ozan Ergenay, Jakob ?Van Calster, Danilo Masoni, editing ?by Milla Nissi-Prussak)