By PATRICK SEITZ

Kulicke and Soffa Industries (KLIC) is the IBD Stock Of The Day as shares of the semiconductor equipment firm surge amid a rally in chip gear stocks. KLIC stock is near a buy point after already clearing early entries.

The Singapore-based company is forecast to show an acceleration in sales and earnings growth when it posts its fiscal second-quarter results in early May.

Analysts polled by FactSet expect Kulicke to earn an adjusted 67 cents a share in its fiscal Q2 ended April 4, vs. a year-earlier loss of 52 cents a share. Sales are seen rising 41% year over year to $228.8 million. In its fiscal first quarter, Kulicke's sales rose 20%.

Kulicke & Soffa makes technology for assembling semiconductor devices.

On the stock market today, KLIC stock climbed 6.1% to close at 76.80.

MarketSurge charts show KLIC stock in an eight-week consolidation pattern with a buy point of 77.50. That buy point is also the stock's all-time high, reached on Feb. 11.

Kulicke & Soffa stock already cleared a downward-sloping trendline and a short-term high of 69.97 in Wednesday's gap up amid the Iran ceasefire rally.

The relative strength line is already at a new high, a bullish sign. That RS line, the blue line in the chart provided, tracks a stock's performance vs. the S&P 500 index.

KLIC Stock In Hot Industry Group

Kulicke ranks No. 12 out of 28 stocks in IBD's semiconductor equipment industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. That group ranks seventh out of 197 industry groups based on stock performance over the past six months.

Semiconductor equipment stocks have been lifted by chipmakers investing in new gear to produce chips for the buildout of data centers for artificial intelligence.

A host of chip gear stocks are at or near record highs. Industry peers hitting all-time highs on Thursday included Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), Aehr Test Systems (AEHR), Onto Innovation (ONTO) and Teradyne (TER).

Elsewhere in the chip gear segment, KLA (KLAC) on Thursday broke out of an 11-week consolidation pattern at a buy point of 1,693.35.

Other semiconductor equipment stocks near buy points include Applied Materials (AMAT), Lam Research (LRCX), MKS (MKSI) and Nova (NVMI), according to MarketSurge.

KLIC stock has an IBD Composite Rating of 87 out of 99. IBD's Composite Rating is a blend of key fundamental and technical metrics to help investors gauge a stock's strengths. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.

Follow Patrick Seitz on X at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.

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Source: Investor's Business Daily