ASML’s Discount to Peers Creates Buying Opportunity as Goldman Lifts Target to €1,600

ASML shares trade at discount to peers despite EUV monopoly; Goldman Sachs raises target to €1,600, but MATCH Act and TSMC High-NA EUV delay pose risks.

ASML’s shares have climbed 31% since the start of the year and nearly 91% over the past twelve months, yet the lithography champion trades at an unusual discount to its semiconductor equipment peers. That disconnect is precisely what caught Goldman Sachs’ attention. The bank raised its price target to €1,600 from €1,570, arguing that ASML’s monopoly on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and its outsized exposure to the AI infrastructure build-out warrant a premium above the sector average. Historically, ASML commanded a 20% premium on a two-year forward P/E basis — a valuation gap Goldman believes should reappear as AI capex accelerates.

The first-quarter numbers provide a sturdy foundation for that thesis. Revenue came in at €8.77 billion, with earnings per share of €7.15, comfortably beating the consensus estimate of €6.00. Gross margin hit 53%. For the full year, management guides revenue between €36 billion and €40 billion, underpinned by accelerated fab expansions from TSMC, Samsung and Intel.

Yet two structural risks are weighing on sentiment and preventing the stock from fully repricing. The most immediate is the MATCH Act, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Congress that would ban exports of even older DUV lithography systems to China. ASML’s China-related system revenue has already shrunk from 36% of the total in the fourth quarter of 2025 to just 19% in the first quarter, and the company expects a full-year contribution of roughly 20%. JPMorgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande estimates that the legislation, if enacted, could shave up to 10% from earnings per share. ODDO-BHF’s Stephane Houri cautions, however, that the bill remains in early legislative stages and must still navigate the full congressional process. Bernstein, Berenberg and Erste Group have all maintained their buy ratings.

The second headwind comes from ASML’s largest customer. TSMC has pushed back the deployment of next-generation High-NA EUV machines to at least 2029, ditching the original plan for broad adoption starting in 2027. Each of these tools costs more than €350 million, and the delay removes a significant near-term revenue catalyst that the market had been pricing in.

None of this has deterred ASML from pressing ahead with its capital return plans. In the week through May 11, the company bought back roughly 64,000 of its own shares for nearly €79.4 million as part of a €12 billion buyback programme that runs through 2028.

On Friday, ASML shares closed at €1,295.20, down about 5% on the day following a disappointing U.S.-China summit that yielded no progress in the semiconductor dispute. The weekly loss came to roughly 4%, although the stock remains just shy of the all-time high it touched earlier in the week. At a forward P/E of 32 and with earnings expected to grow 23% annually, the PEG ratio of 1.4 looks modest for a company that holds a de facto monopoly on the most advanced chipmaking tools. ASML will report its next quarterly results on July 15, giving investors a fresh look at whether the Q1 momentum can withstand the gathering geopolitical and technological crosscurrents.