The Laggard Rotation 72 Hours — When Rohm Flipped Back to Profit, JX Metals Erased Its 40% Drawdown, and Resonac Closed the Gap on US Rivals in the Same Week

The Second Wave — 72 Hours When the Laggards, Not the Leaders, Guided Up

Last week's Japan-semi coverage was dominated by leader-group prints: Screen(7735), Advantest(6857), Daifuku, Ibiden, Nitto, Ajinomoto all posting records. Re-open the tape for August 5–7 and a quieter but more strategically important signal is stacked on top — the names that had been trailing all guided up together in the same 72 hours.

The headline exhibit is Rohm(6963), which flipped back to a ¥9.6 bn Q2 operating profit after four losing quarters, citing recovery in automotive and AI-server power semis (Reuters/Nikkei). Rohm has been the poster child of the Japanese power-SiC drawdown; a flip to positive OP in a single quarter is real-world confirmation that the SiC/EV cycle bottom is behind us.

The same week, JX Metals raised FY2027 guidance on the combination of a copper rally and a semi-materials recovery — after the stock had been down roughly 40% from its high (Nikkei). Since JX supplies CMP slurry and bonding wire into SK Hynix and Samsung, that guide-up is a direct read that back-end/bonding material demand has actually recovered.

Resonac(4004) disclosed that its profitability gap versus US rivals (3M, Entegris, JSR) has narrowed and that it is accelerating the pivot into pure-play semi materials. Resonac had been the archetype of the post-merger (Hitachi Chemical + Showa Denko) laggard for three years running.

On top of that, the already-hot names also guided up: Fujifilm raised full-year revenue on materials strength, Mitsui Chemicals guided April–September growth, Nitto Denko beat by ~¥20 bn on materials, Ajinomoto printed a record Q1 on AI-server substrate ABF and raised full-year, DNP printed a record Q2, SMC posted +96% YoY net profit, KOKUSAI raised FY guidance, Sanwa Technos revenue and profit surged.

Why This Is a Laggard Rotation

That this many names all raised in the same three trading days is itself the information. Until this week, the working Japan-semi trade was effectively compressed into five names — Advantest + Screen + Ibiden + Nitto + Ajinomoto — so concentrated that when the August 3 Nikkei 225 rebalance triggered index selling, Advantest's decline alone pulled the index down 1,121 points.

This week's laggard prints break that concentration. The market flow reads as:

1. AI demand is diffusing from the leaders into the B-team. With Screen, Advantest, Nitto, and Ajinomoto already booked, the order book has reached the second tier — KOKUSAI (thermal processing), SMC (pneumatic), DNP (leadframes/photomasks), and Fujifilm (photoresist).
2. A weak yen plus US tariff relief lift materials margins. The US is imposing a 15% additional tariff on semi materials in December 2026, but Japan negotiated mitigation measures (Nikkei). Korean and Taiwanese suppliers absorb the full 15% cost drag; Japanese materials houses defend their US-bound margin.
3. The power/analog cycle has passed its low. Rohm's flip is a real-world signal that EV power adoption is recovering and that AI-server power-management IC content per box is expanding. That in turn re-rates Renesas(6723) into its next print.

PM Positioning — Rohm(6963) as the Symbol of the Second Wave

The representative symbol of the laggard rotation is Rohm(6963), for three reasons.

First, it is the only name whose direction — not just magnitude — flipped this week. Fujifilm and Mitsui were already profitable and merely raised guidance. Rohm went from red to black.

Second, Rohm's power-SiC and analog lines are exposed to both automotive and AI-server power. Toyota's chip-shortage warning notwithstanding, EV power-semi content is still ramping; on the AI-server side, PMIC content per GPU is expanding meaningfully.

Third, valuation-reset headroom is largest here. Advantest's FY2027 consensus is already grinding up +4.3% weekly with the sell-side target lifted to ¥42,000 (Nikkei) — most of the upgrade cycle is already priced. Rohm is at its first profitable quarter; the consensus-upgrade path is only beginning.

One rebuttal: the design-talent gap is a structural drag that has not gone away (Reuters). Japan's fabless SoC-design bench is thin. The laggard rotation is valid only within materials, equipment, and power — the areas where Japan is actually strong — and does not extend to justifying the Rapidus 2nm SoC project.

Summary

• 8–10 Japanese semi supply-chain names guided up in 72 hours. About half of them were prior laggards.
• Pattern: AI demand diffusing from leaders to the second tier, weak yen, US tariff relief, and the power cycle passing its low.
• Representative symbol: Rohm(6963), at the first profitable quarter — earliest point of the consensus-upgrade path.
• Caveat: Design/SoC lines are excluded from this wave; do not extend the read into Rapidus.

Key Sources: - Rohm Returns to Profitability in Q2 Driven by AI Servers and Automotive (Reuters/Nikkei, 2026-08-05) - JX Metals Raises Profit Forecast on Copper Surge and Strong Semiconductor Materials Demand (Nikkei, 2026-08-06) - Resonac narrows profitability gap with US rivals, accelerates materials shift (Nikkei, 2026-08-06) - US Imposes 15% Tariff on Semiconductor Materials; Japan Negotiates Lighter Measures (Nikkei, 2026-08-07) - Advantest Maintains Bullish Rating, Target Price Raised to 42,000 Yen (Nikkei, 2026-08-05) - plus 43 more