Lam Research Corporation

Lam Research makes the etch and deposition tools every advanced chip fab uses to actually build transistors — nowhere near ASML's monopoly on lithography, but still one of a small handful of vendors any TSMC, Samsung, or Intel fab must buy. The stock has tripled in a year on the AI-capex thesis and is now digesting a wave of insider selling into a July 29 print.

• Revenue grew 24% YoY to $4.2B last quarter with a 34% operating margin — the picks-and-shovels franchise is compounding at rates that look nothing like a mature cap-eq business, because the AI fab build cycle is nothing like a normal cycle.
• Trades at 56x TTM earnings and 17x sales — expensive on trailing, but with sell-side EPS models now reaching $11-$12 in a $250B WFE environment (Stifel raised PT to $425, Cowen to $400), the forward multiple is defensible if the WFE upcycle holds.
• CEO Tim Archer sold $11.7M on July 6 and director Abhijit Talwalkar sold $6.1M on July 14 — those are big numbers by any absolute measure, and the timing right into the July 29 earnings print is worth naming even if the ultimate transactions were 10b5-1 planned.
• Position vs 200-day MA +45% — the run has been extraordinary and the tape is now closer to the 50-day; the -3% today is the first real cooling since March.
• 52-week position 70th percentile — still elevated but off the peak, so the setup rewards a beat and punishes even a mildly cautious guide.

July 29 earnings decides the setup: a beat with FY27 WFE commentary intact plus a Q4 guide reflecting AI-fab bookings keeps the run alive; any hint that Chinese-fab spending is rolling over is where the 45% run-up above the 200-day MA meets gravity. The insider selling is the shadow underlying all of it — real business, priced for perfection.