Munro Concentrated Global Growth Fund on Applied Materials Inc.
Thesis
Munro remains invested in Applied Materials as a semiconductor capital-equipment beneficiary of global demand for advanced computing. The shares fell during July’s AI supply-chain selloff, but the fund states that it sees strong fundamental growth ahead. Management discussions across its AI-related holdings reinforced the view that physical data-centre construction, power demand and compute requirements have not slowed. Increasing agentic workloads should extend the multi-year market for the semiconductor ecosystem.
“both companies, Applied Materials in semiconductor capital equipment and Nokia in networking, still have strong fundamental growth ahead.”
Key risks
- AI equipment valuations having priced in excessive future growth
- Potential regulation or political opposition to data-centre construction
- Doubts about the durability of AI capital expenditure