Investing
BlackRock SOXX Leads SMH by 22 Points Over One Year, Trails by 100 Over Five
By Bear Creek Staff, . Bear Creek Capital Network.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) has beaten the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) over the past year by a margin that is hard to ignore, but the five-year record tells a different story, according to 24/7 Wall St.
Over the twelve months through early October 2026, SOXX gained 111.56% against SMH's 89.13%, a gap of 22.43 percentage points. SOXX also led over shorter windows: up 13.64% over the past month versus SMH's 11.96%, and ahead year-to-date by 96.38% to 76.28%, a difference of 20.1 points. Every recent period favors SOXX.
Stretch the window to five years, and the relationship reverses sharply. SMH climbed 415% over that period while SOXX rose 315.32%, putting SMH ahead by roughly 100 points. Over ten years, on a total return basis, SMH posted a gain of 1,901.44% against 1,618.66% for SOXX. The longer the holding period, the larger SMH's advantage.
The two funds track different indexes. SMH follows the MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index; SOXX follows the NYSE Semiconductor Index. Each index applies its own rules on which companies qualify and how much weight they receive, which is the structural reason the two funds can diverge even when they hold many of the same names.
Concentration is a live issue for SMH holders. The fund's most recent holdings filing, dated June 30, 2026, showed Nvidia at 17.54% of net assets and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing at 9.28%. That level of Nvidia exposure means a meaningful portion of the fund's daily movement tracks a single company's earnings and guidance. Nvidia reached an all-time high as of October 5, 2026, according to a separate 24/7 Wall St. report, which has recently worked in SMH holders' favor. It also means a single company's reversal can pull the fund down materially.
The analytical question for anyone holding SMH is whether one year of SOXX outperformance justifies a switch. The recent gap is real, but it is roughly one-fifth the size of SMH's five-year lead. In a taxable account, realizing large embedded gains to capture a one-year performance difference carries a tax cost that could easily exceed the benefit, particularly if SOXX's recent edge does not persist. A pattern of SOXX outperformance sustained over several years would be a meaningfully stronger case than the current data provides.
What the reporting does not establish is why SOXX outperformed over the past year specifically, whether the index-construction differences that drove the gap are structural or cyclical, or how the two funds' expense ratios and liquidity profiles compare. Those details matter before any reallocation decision and are worth pulling from VanEck's and iShares' own holdings pages directly.
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