History Says Broadcom Stock's Best Season Starts Now. It Has Risen in 13 Straight Fourth Quarters.

Broadcom has posted gains in every fourth quarter since 2013, averaging about 18%, and begins the upcoming quarter near $350, roughly 29% below its $495 52-week high. Management guides for fiscal Q4 revenue of about $34.8 billion, up 93% year over year, with AI chips expected to account for most of the increase. The December earnings release remains the key catalyst: it has driven sharp upside moves, including a 24% post-results gain in 2024, but shares fell 11% after the December 2025 report.

Analysis

The relevant setup is not seasonality but a highly convex December earnings event: AVGO’s drawdown leaves room for multiple re-rating if AI semiconductor growth converts into raised forward estimates, while the market will punish any sign that hyperscaler custom-silicon demand is being pulled forward rather than expanded. The stated growth outlook requires verification of organic contribution, acquisition comparability, and AI segment mix; absent those details, headline revenue growth is a weak indicator of incremental EPS and FCF. The key near-term variable is whether management raises the next-year AI revenue run-rate and demonstrates that software margins are stabilizing rather than diluting consolidated operating leverage.

A sustained AVGO recovery would pressure Nvidia’s valuation premium at the margin, particularly if custom ASIC deployments prove to be a larger share of hyperscaler capex than investors expect. That is a 6-18 month competitive issue rather than an immediate zero-sum displacement: aggregate AI capex can support both, but AVGO’s upside is most sensitive to evidence that ASICs are taking workloads that would otherwise require merchant GPUs. Contrarian view: the historical quarterly pattern is likely already widely recognized and has poor predictive value around a binary guidance event; buying solely for the calendar exposes capital to elevated event volatility and a potentially unfavorable implied-volatility premium.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Initiate a modest AVGO long only after confirming consensus forward EPS revisions are turning positive ahead of the December report; target a move toward $405-420 over 1-3 months, with a thesis stop on a close below $315 or evidence that AI revenue guidance is not being raised.
• For event exposure, prefer a defined-risk AVGO December call spread, such as long the $370 call / short the $430 call, sized only if implied volatility remains below the expected post-earnings move. This captures a guidance-driven rerating while limiting premium and avoids paying for an unhedged seasonal narrative.
• Monitor AVGO/NVDA relative performance rather than shorting NVDA outright. If AVGO’s AI run-rate is raised and the AVGO/NVDA ratio fails to break out within 5 trading days, treat that as evidence the market views the growth as lower quality or already priced; do not add exposure.
• Require disclosure or corroboration of AI customer concentration, custom-chip backlog, and software operating-margin trajectory before scaling. A weaker-than-expected next-quarter guide, margin compression, or reduced capital-return outlook would falsify the bullish case regardless of reported revenue growth.