Olstein Capital Sells $5.2 Million Kulicke and Soffa Stake -- Is the Semiconductor Equipment Rally Over?

• Following the sale, KLIC represents 0.88% of Olstein Capital’s 13F assets nether management

• The fund's apical 5 holdings aft the filing are:

  • NYSE:DIS: $10.0 cardinal (2.2% of AUM)

  • NYSE:ST: $9.8 cardinal (2.1% of AUM)

  • NYSE:AVTR: $9.5 cardinal (2.1% of AUM)

  • NASDAQ:LKQ: $9.2 cardinal (2.0% of AUM)

  • NYSE:OMC: $8.9 cardinal (1.9% of AUM)

• As of April 22, 2026, shares were trading astatine $84.16, up astir 185% implicit the past twelvemonth and outperforming the S&P 500 by astir 150 percent points.

Kulicke and Soffa Industries is simply a starring decorator and shaper of semiconductor assembly instrumentality and related solutions, serving planetary electronics manufacturers crossed the U.S. and Asia/Pacific.

• Its merchandise portfolio spans superior instrumentality and tools for semiconductor instrumentality assembly -- including precocious packaging, bonding, lithography systems, and consumables -- arsenic good arsenic bundle solutions.

• The institution generates gross done instrumentality income and aftermarket services -- including maintenance, repair, upgrades, and consumables -- for semiconductor manufacturers, outsourced assembly and trial providers, and automotive electronics suppliers.

• K&S is progressively focused connected next-generation precocious packaging technologies, including fluxless thermo-compression bonding for AI and high-bandwidth representation applications.

Olstein Capital's determination to trim its KLIC presumption looks a batch similar textbook profit-taking aft a singular run. The banal has astir tripled implicit the past twelvemonth -- a summation that would reasonably punctual immoderate disciplined portfolio manager to rebalance, careless of their semipermanent presumption connected the company. Notably, Olstein hasn't exited the presumption entirely; it inactive holds 61,000 shares, suggesting immoderate continued conviction.

And determination are immoderate compelling reasons to support that conviction. Kulicke and Soffa's astir caller net -- for Q1 2026, reported successful February -- showed meaningful momentum. The institution reported nett gross of $199.6 cardinal and non-GAAP EPS of $0.44, some up of expert expectations. That followed a beardown Q4 2025, wherever non-GAAP nett income roseate 42% twelvemonth implicit year. Management has guided for continued growth, with full-year fiscal 2026 gross expected successful the scope of $730 cardinal to $740 cardinal -- astir 12% maturation implicit fiscal 2025's $654.1 cardinal -- and determination are factual reasons to judge the institution tin get there. K&S expects its thermo-compression bonding business, which is captious to the assembly of AI chips and high-bandwidth memory, to turn astir 70% successful fiscal 2026. The institution besides precocious launched its ProMEM suite, which tin present up to 20% higher throughput for representation assembly workloads driven by AI demand.