QUICK SPARK: Cybersecurity Stocks Outperform Chipmakers in 2026

The AI trade is rotating from companies that build AI to those that defend against it.

The Amplify Cybersecurity ETF (NYSE:HACK) is now up 66.1% in 2026, ahead of the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) at 60.1%.

For most of the year, it wasn’t close. In June, chipmakers rose more than 100% and led cybersecurity by roughly 75 percentage points.

That flips the script.

On Oct. 21, governments and companies took websites offline to patch two critical PHP flaws found with the help of frontier AI.

Last week, HACK beat the S&P 500 by 9.6%. That was its best relative week since 2014, and the HACK-to-SPY ratio is now at a record high.

The best-performing cybersecurity stocks year to date through Oct. 27 are Okta Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA), up 158.7%, Fortinet Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT), up 131.6%, CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD), up 125.3%, Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW), up 116%, and Tenable Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:TENB), up 102.4%.

Chart: Amplify Cybersecurity ETF vs. iShares Semiconductor ETF, year-to-date performance. Source: TradingView

Image: Shutterstock