Sands Capital Adds Lam Research to Growth Portfolio Amid Market Rotation
Lam Research shares rise 24 per cent year-on-year as Sands Capital Management includes the chip equipment maker in its Select Growth Strategy for the first quarter of 2026.
Sands Capital Management has added Lam Research Corporation to its Select Growth Strategy portfolio, citing the company’s dominant position in semiconductor etch applications and its critical role in enabling advanced computing architectures. The inclusion was detailed in the firm’s first-quarter 2026 investor letter, which highlighted Lam Research’s primary exposure to memory chips and secondary focus on logic processors as key drivers for future growth.
The decision comes as the fund navigates a challenging macroeconomic environment. U.S. large-cap growth stocks declined during the quarter, with the Select Growth Strategy returning minus 12.9 per cent compared to the Russell 1000 Growth Index’s loss of 9.8 per cent. Sands Capital attributed the underperformance to a market rotation away from higher-growth, asset-light businesses toward capital-intensive sectors, compounded by geopolitical tensions with Iran that triggered a broad risk-off move late in the quarter.
Despite the headwinds facing the strategy, Lam Research reported strong fundamental performance. The company recorded revenue of $5.84 billion for the March quarter, representing a 24 per cent increase year-on-year and a 9 per cent sequential rise. This financial strength aligns with Sands Capital’s view that semiconductor manufacturing is becoming increasingly complex, requiring sophisticated processes to pack more functionality into fixed physical spaces.
Sands Capital noted that traditional drivers of computing improvements, such as frequency scaling, have slowed, shifting innovation toward three-dimensional structures and task-specific accelerators. The fund believes Lam Research is well-positioned to benefit from this multiyear investment cycle as the industry transitions to more advanced nodes and demand for memory increases to support artificial intelligence applications.
Market data reflects growing institutional interest in the semiconductor equipment maker. Lam Research shares closed at $324.45 on June 8, 2026, valuing the company at $405.75 billion. The stock has gained 256.54 per cent over the past 52 weeks, and the number of hedge fund portfolios holding the company rose to 123 at the end of the first quarter, up from 104 in the previous period.
