U.S. Stock Earnings Season Opens: "AI Faith" Faces its First Big Test! ASML Holding NV ADR (ASML.US) in the Spotlight After Surging

As the global investors focus on the US earnings season for stocks, the curtain officially opened on Tuesday, with semiconductor lithography giant ASML Holding NV facing a very tricky "earnings test". Prior to this, the stock had surged nearly 50% in over a month, mainly due to investors in the global financial markets hoping that the accelerated construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure would drive significant expansion in 3nm and below chip production capacity for companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, thereby boosting semiconductor equipment orders. Therefore, with its best single-month stock performance in twenty years, ASML Holding NV ADR will release its earnings report tomorrow, becoming the focus of the global financial markets. The latest stock market data shows that ASML Holding NV ADR's US ADR (ASML.US) trading price has increased by as much as 45% since 2025, with a surge of over 40% since September, slightly outperforming the European stock market. Since September, under the catalyzation of "more expensive new EUV lithography machine - the High-NA lithography machine transitioning from lab validation to chip manufacturing deployment" and investment in Mistral AI, ASML Holding NV ADR's stock price has significantly entered an upward trajectory, hovering around $984 for ASML Holding NV ADR's US ADR, and around 840 for ASML Holding NV ADR's European stock. The semiconductor equipment manufacturer based in the Netherlands retook the title of Europe's most valuable publicly traded company in September and recorded its best single-month performance in twenty years. In the past two months, at least four Wall Street Financial Institutions, Inc. have upgraded their stock ratings and target prices for ASML Holding NV ADR; especially after significant improvements in the performance prospects of chip manufacturing clients Intel Corporation and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd., institutions have generally turned more bullish. What details about ASML Holding NV ADR's performance are the market focusing on? Ahead of the key earnings report release on Wednesday, the key question amidst soaring expectations is: can ASML Holding NV ADR's management provide a stronger financial guidance for 2026 than in July? With rising market uncertainties due to increasing tensions in US-China trade relations, investors are actively looking for more clues to prove that semiconductor equipment manufacturers can profit significantly from this unprecedented wave of AI enthusiasm. "The market will focus on ASML Holding NV ADR's 2026 performance prospects - investors now hope to see whether the intense expansion of capital expenditures related to high-performance AI chips from clients such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR and Samsung Electronics has begun to order books for ASML Holding NV ADR and other semiconductor equipment giants," said Reinder Wietsma, portfolio manager at Centive Global Equity Fund. ASML Holding NV ADR is the world's sole supplier of EUV lithography equipment necessary for advanced AI chip manufacturing processes. In July, it stated that the global trade tensions prevented them from confirming growth expectations for 2026. This statement caused its stock price to plummet by 11% on the day of the earnings release and dragged down its peers in the chip sector. Subsequently, an agreement between the US and the EU, which includes exempting strategic items such as semiconductor equipment from tariffs, has cleared a dark cloud for ASML Holding NV ADR's American customers, combined with the ongoing surge in global AI infrastructure construction, continuing to drive up the stock prices of ASML Holding NV ADR and other semiconductor equipment manufacturers. However, the recent escalation of the US-China trade war poses a significant interference and threat to the fundamental expectations of ASML Holding NV ADR. ASML Holding NV ADR is heavily dependent on rare earth materials from China; after the US government expanded sanctions to cover subsidiaries of blacklisted companies, the risk of restrictions on shipping mature lithography equipment to the world's second largest economy is significantly increasing. There are also concerns that Chinese chip manufacturers may reduce related expenditures after hoarding lithography equipment for many years. Investor sentiment has recently been boosted by signs of recovery from two major clients of ASML Holding NV ADR - Intel Corporation and Samsung Electronics. Intel Corporation has received hefty investments from "AI chip dominator" NVIDIA Corporation and the US government, giving it the potential to increase future capital expenditures significantly. Furthermore, with the combination of x86 + NVIDIA Corporation GPU, the demand in the future for x86 architecture CPUs and NVIDIA Corporation AI GPU chips in the chip industry chain is expected to surge. Samsung's underperforming chip outsourcing business is turning the tide, as it secures orders for AI and FSD high-performance chips for Tesla, Inc., led by Musk, at a large chip manufacturing plant to be built in Texas, which will require more investment. Additionally, more media reports suggest that Samsung's advanced storage chips have been approved for use in NVIDIA Corporation's Blackwell flagship AI server cluster. Despite the recent positive news from Samsung, a key uncertainty is whether Samsung can also obtain approval for the next generation HBM4 storage chips from NVIDIA Corporation, which is seen as a potential swing factor for the surge in orders for ASML Holding NV ADR starting from next year. Analyst Simon Coles from Barclays PLC Sponsored ADR stated that the improved fundamental prospects of these two companies may not be strong enough to help ASML Holding NV ADR's lithography machine bookings in the third quarter. He mentioned that Intel Corporation may have already secured all the necessary EUV lithography machines, and Samsung's outsourcing department, while in a better position now, is "unlikely to be a significant contributor to orders in the short term". According to data compiled by institutions, the implied post-earnings volatility of ASML Holding NV ADR's options is as high as 7%, the second largest expected volatility in three years. The market expects the unprecedented AI boom to continue positively catalyzing ASML Holding NV ADR's stock price For investors, after experiencing a recent strong rise, ASML Holding NV ADR's valuation no longer appears cheap. Based on the two-year forward earnings per share valuation - a key indicator because of the long delivery cycle of its advanced EUV equipment, the stock's forward P/E ratio has risen to 28x, higher than the average of 27x over the past five years. According to a professional sales desk survey by JPMorgan, the recent rise in ASML Holding NV ADR's US ADR has mainly been driven by hedge fund buying, while most long-term bullish investors are still watching from the sidelines. While the market's improvement in ASML Holding NV ADR's prospects for 2026 may be welcomed by hedge funds, long-term bullish investors are concerned that "ASML Holding NV ADR's management may still disappoint investors in terms of clarity on order prospects". Wells Fargo & Company, a financial giant on Wall Street, recently released a bullish research report on the semiconductor equipment industry, stating that with the increasingly heated global AI infrastructure construction led by tech giants such as Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc. Class C, and Meta, the rapid acceleration of increasing production of advanced 3nm and below chip manufacturing and advanced packaging capacity expansion would strongly support the long-term bullish logic of the semiconductor equipment sector. ASML Holding NV ADR is one of the semiconductor equipment stocks that Wells Fargo & Company has long been optimistic about. Wells Fargo & Company stated that all news catalyzing the increased production capacity of advanced process AI chips is positive and beneficial for semiconductor equipment. The institution mentioned that architecture updates involving much more complex and stronger performing CPU/GPU packaging heterogeneity (based on NVLink interconnect, as well as chiplet advanced packaging such as CoWoS/EMIB/Foveros) will significantly boost the structural demand for EUV/High-NA lithography machines, advanced packaging equipment, and inspection metrology, especially benefiting ASML Holding NV ADR, Applied Materials, and KLA. Wells Fargo & Company reiterated its "buy" rating on ASML Holding NV ADR's ADR, raising the target price significantly from $890 to $1105. The institution emphasized that in the era of 2nm processes, the demand for ASML Holding NV ADR's High-NA lithography machines will be a strong driver of both ASML Holding NV ADR's performance and stock price increase. With the strong expansion in demand for High-NA EUV lithography machines led by chip manufacturing giants SK Hynix, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, Samsung, and Intel Corporation, the transition of High-NA from the initial verification stage to chip manufacturing deployment, ASML Holding NV ADR is expected to return to a track of "strong compound growth". In addition, one of the long-term concerns about ASML Holding NV ADR by some institutions is that it is competing for capital investment with other core components in the chip manufacturing process, as more expensive advanced lithography equipment is no longer the sole component needed for manufacturing more powerful chips with stronger performance. Richard Clode, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, stated that he has been increasing his holdings in semiconductor equipment companies recently, but is more focused on companies producing equipment related to deposition and etching processes in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Compared to semiconductor equipment companies, he prefers stocks that directly benefit from the massive wave of AI infrastructure spending, such as NVIDIA Corporation and HBM storage chip manufacturers. "I still believe that devices are not as strong as more direct computing or storage targets, and the device spending cycle has also been distorted by political conditions and China's hoarding of equipment in recent years," Clode said in an email.