SMH is VanEck's Semiconductor UCITS ETF — the whole chip supply chain in one line, from the foundries that print the wafers to the firms that design the chips and the machines that make them. The honest take: it's 0.35% TER, accumulating, and holds just 25 stocks, so this is a concentrated sector bet, not a diversified core. Its job is to be the satellite you bolt onto a broad fund when you want to overweight semiconductors on purpose — never the only thing you own.
What's inside
| Ticker | Name | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| TSM | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd | 10.09% |
| ASML | ASML Holding NV | 10.08% |
| NVDA | NVIDIA Corp. | 9.92% |
| AVGO | Broadcom Inc. | 9.59% |
| MU | Micron Technology | 8.29% |
The first thing to notice is the ceiling. The index caps any single name at 10%, and the top four sit right against it: Taiwan Semiconductor at 10.09%, ASML at 10.08%, NVIDIA at 9.92%, and Broadcom at 9.59%. That's the whole design — roughly equal weighting among the giants instead of letting one name run away the way it would in a market-cap index. Even so, the ten names in the table are 78% of the fund: this is 25 stocks, and the top ten are most of it. By geography it reads "US-listed" more than "US" — Taiwan Semiconductor is Taiwanese, ASML is Dutch, both held via their US listings — but every holding is a pure-play chip company: foundries, designers, and equipment makers in roughly equal measure.
Costs and structure
The ongoing charge is 0.35% — €175 a year on a €50k position, and nearly double the 0.19% you'd pay for a broad all-world fund like VWCE. That gap is the price of a single-sector thematic: you're paying for targeted exposure you can't get from a broad index fund, not for cheap beta. Replication is full physical — VanEck holds all the index constituents directly rather than tracking them through a swap. The fund is Irish-domiciled (ISIN IE00BMC38736) and accumulates dividends inside the wrapper, so there's nothing to reinvest and no tax event until you sell. It launched on 1 December 2020 as Europe's first semiconductor UCITS ETF and has since grown to $9.2 billion (June 2026). Base currency is USD; on the LSE you buy it in dollars. The benchmark is the MarketVector US Listed Semiconductor 10% Capped Screened Index, and the full breakdown is on VanEck's fund page.
Performance in context
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SMH versus CNDX is the comparison that frames the decision, because CNDX — the Nasdaq 100 — is where most people already get their chip exposure without thinking about it. The difference is dose. CNDX holds the semiconductor names alongside the rest of big tech, software, and consumer; SMH is the same trade with everything that isn't a chip company stripped out. When semis lead the market, SMH leaves CNDX behind; when they don't, it lags. That's the whole question — not whether you like semiconductors, but whether you want them concentrated or diluted. Read the chart; don't assume last year's winner repeats. The full head-to-head is in CNDX vs SMH.
Who buys it and why
SMH is a satellite, not a portfolio. The textbook holder already owns a broad core — an all-world fund like VWCE or an S&P 500 tracker like VUAA — and wants to tilt deliberately toward the part of the market they think compounds fastest: the companies that design and build chips. It's a conviction position. If you believe AI, data centres, and electrification keep pulling semiconductor demand higher faster than the broad market already prices in, SMH is the cleanest way to express that. If you don't hold that specific view, you don't need it — your broad fund already owns NVIDIA, Broadcom, and the rest at market weight, and you skip both the 0.35% fee and the cyclical whiplash.
Alternatives worth knowing
- CNDX — the Nasdaq 100: chip names plus the rest of big tech, the diluted version of the same tilt at a lower fee.
- VUAA — the S&P 500, where semiconductors already sit inside a diversified US large-cap index with nothing extra to manage.
- CNDX vs SMH — the head-to-head on concentrated-vs- diluted tech exposure, if you're deciding between the two.