We're Going to Sox Country

Semiconductor stocks have suddenly turned from leaders into laggards, as even monster multi-year winners like AVGO NXPI SWKS are showing their age.

For a while now, some larger semis like INTC TSM TXN have been lagging the midcap semis. 

But when we look at the group as a whole, on a long-term basis, we can see the major price resistance from late-2000/early-2001 is asserting itself. 

On the monthly chart of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, or SOX, below, note those prior post dot-com crash levels coming into play. 

The issue now becomes whether that 20-period monthly moving average (orange line), will motivate buyers to defend this pullback and keep it fairly contained, or instead if the small and midcap semis follow the likes of INTC TXN lower.

And when we observe TXN, for example, it is hard not to think the larger cap semis have been warning us for a good while now.