The People Who Sign the AI Checks Just Answered With Their Wallets

While the market debated whether AI spending will ever pay off, the people who sign those checks answered with their own money. Twenty-eight executives at companies inside the Technology Select Sector ETF bought their own stock on the open market over the past six months, the highest count on record, per SentimenTrader. The figure has doubled since the start of 2026. The previous record was 25, set in 2011. In early 2025, just five insiders were buying. On Friday, SK Hynix debuted on the Nasdaq, raising $26.5 billion in the largest U.S. listing by a foreign company. Demand was seven times oversubscribed. The insiders are not debating. They are buying.

Peter Lynch called insider buying the single most valuable signal in equity markets. His logic was simple: insiders sell for dozens of reasons, from taxes to divorces to home purchases. But they buy for only one reason: they believe the stock is going up. When a CEO or CFO writes a personal check for shares of their own company on the open market, not through an option exercise, not through a compensation plan, but with cash from their own account, they are making a bet that they expect to win.

Twenty-eight technology executives have made that bet in the past six months. That is a record. It surpasses the 25 set in 2011, during the recovery from the global financial crisis, before a decade-long tech bull run that created more than $15 trillion in market value. In early 2025, just five insiders were buying. The count doubled this year. And it happened while the public conversation was dominated by a single question: has AI spending gone too far?

What they see that the market is debating. The argument against tech stocks right now is familiar: valuations are stretched, AI capital expenditure may not generate returns for years, and rising oil prices are putting pressure on the energy-intensive data centers that power the entire trade. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF fell 4.5% in a single session on July 2 and the KOSPI crashed 8% the same day. DeepSeek announced its own AI chip, threatening Nvidia’s dominance. The bearish case is real. But the insiders are not buying on the bearish case. They are buying on the order books they can see, the customer commitments they have signed, and the capacity shortages they know are not resolving. SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won said on Friday that when he told customers the company would double capacity within five years, they said it was not enough. Micron is signing customers to five-year purchase commitments with large upfront cash payments, a structure the memory industry has never used before. These are not speculative bets. They are contractual commitments from hyperscalers who need chips that do not yet exist.

The SK Hynix test. Friday’s IPO was the most concrete expression of this confidence. SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion, eclipsing Alibaba’s 2014 record of $25 billion to become the largest U.S. listing by a foreign company. Demand was seven times the available shares. The proceeds are earmarked for a $390 billion fabrication cluster in Yongin, South Korea, and a $4 billion advanced packaging plant in Indiana. Meanwhile, the company placed an $8 billion order with ASML for 30 EUV lithography machines, ASML’s largest single order in history. Memory chip makers now account for 51% of all EUV system sales, surpassing logic foundries for the first time. The industry that was selling product below cost two years ago is now the largest buyer of the most expensive manufacturing equipment on earth.

The notable absence. One detail in the insider data stands out: Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia executives have not made open-market purchases in over two years, even as their stocks pulled back meaningfully from mid-May highs. The buying is concentrated in the companies further down the supply chain: chip equipment makers, memory producers, infrastructure providers, and enterprise software firms that have sold off harder and trade at lower multiples. The insiders are not buying the most expensive names. They are buying the names that the market has beaten down while the AI thesis was being questioned. That distinction matters. It suggests the smart money does not think AI is overvalued everywhere. It thinks AI is overvalued at the top and undervalued in the middle.

What it means for your portfolio. Insider buying is not a timing tool. The executives who bought in 2011 were early by months. The signal does not tell you that the bottom is in. It tells you that the people with the most information believe the current price is below the future value of what they are building. Whether they are right depends on the same questions the market is asking: does AI generate enough revenue to justify the infrastructure spend? Do memory shortages persist or resolve? Does oil stay high enough to erode margins? Monday’s CPI report and bank earnings will address the macro side. TSMC and ASML later in the week will address the supply side. The insiders have already placed their bets. The market catches up or it does not.