Semiconductor ETF (SMH) Taps Fresh 52-Week High on Heavy Volume

Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSE: SMH) is hitting 52-week highs today on heavy volume as speculators expect more consolidation in the group.

Recently analysts at Nomura Securities said the sector is in the middle of a merger "swell." The analyst sees 15 acquisition candidates that fall into one of three buckets:

(1) sub-scale – Integrated Device Technology (NASDAQ: IDTI), Intersil Corp (NASDAQ: ISIL), M/A-Com Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: MTSI), Micrel, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCRL), Semtech Corp (NASDAQ: SMTC) and Silicon Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLAB);

(2) strategic – Altera Corp (NASDAQ: ALTR), Applied Micro Circuits (NASDAQ: AMCC), Atmel Corp (NASDAQ: ATML), Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM), Cavium (NASDAQ: CAVM) and Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MPWR), and

(3) undervalued – Diodes, Inc. (NASDAQ: DIOD), International Rectifier Corp. (NYSE: IRF), and Microsemi Corp (NASDAQ: MSCC).

The companies they view that are most likely to make an acquisition include Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN), Maxim (NASDAQ: MXIM), NXPI (NASDAQ: NXPI), Skyworks (NASDAQ: SWKS) and Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX).

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