By Jared Blikre

The first leg of this rebound belonged to chip stocks. Now, software is catching up quickly.

Since the March 30 bottom, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) has surged more than 30% in 12 trading days, while the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) has gained just 8%.

Chip stocks (SOXX) are outrunning software stocks (IGV) over the last 12 trading days

That tells the story of this rebound so far: Semis bottomed with the broader market and took off immediately, while software kept sliding until Friday, April 10.

That late turn is what makes the latest move in software stand out. Over the last four days, IGV has jumped over 12%, versus nearly 5% for SOXX.

Software (IGV) is outrunning chip stocks (SOXX) over the last 4 trading days

The catch-up move looks broad enough to matter. In software, Oracle (ORCL) is up nearly 30% over the last four days, while Atlassian (TEAM), RingCentral (RNG), AppLovin (APP), Snowflake (SNOW), Cloudflare (NET), Datadog (DDOG), and HubSpot (HUBS) have all posted double-digit gains. Microsoft (MSFT) is up nearly 13% in that stretch.

But the 12-day chart shows why semis still own the bigger move. Broadcom (AVGO) is up over 35% since March 30 and Marvell (MRVL) more than 50%, while AMD (AMD) and Micron (MU) are each up over 40%.

That is a notable break from last year. After the April 8, 2025, post–"Liberation Day" low, software and chip stocks bottomed together and moved largely in sync. This time, software missed the first burst entirely, then woke up in a hurry.

Some software names are still digging out. Over the full 12-day stretch, Snowflake (SNOW), ServiceNow (NOW), and HubSpot (HUBS) are all down more than 5%.

So this looks less like a leadership change than a rally that's finally broadening within tech. If software keeps gaining ground from here, the rebound gets healthier. If this four-day sprint peters out quickly, semis are still doing most of the heavy lifting.

Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.