This week, which stocks lagged or dragged? Weekly Winners column keeps up with market trends, helping Tigers sort out the week's hottest sectors, stock winners and important news.

Below are top 10 S&P 500 stock gainers for the week ended September 11:

Oracle Earnings Reignite AI Server Rally, Lifting Dell and HPE Shares

Shares of server makers $Dell Technologies(DELL) rose 8.23% this week and Hewlett Packard Enterprise rose 19.4%, as investors were reassured about data-center spending by Oracle's latest earnings report.

Oracle's (ORCL) 30% revenue growth and expanding backlog for its artificial-intelligence cloud services showed investors that AI spending "remains robust and can translate into revenue," according to Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management. That offered a boost to Dell (DELL) and HPE (HPE), which provide data-center hardware.

Mulberry also pointed to Dell's own recent earnings report, which showed its AI server business reaching $60.9 billion in orders and the company's backlog swelling to $95 billion.

Accelerating demand for traditional and AI servers, as well as storage and networking equipment, is benefitting both Dell and HPE, Mulberry said in emailed comments. He noted that Dell has greater exposure to large-scale orders for AI servers, while HPE has strength from its broad networking and enterprise infrastructure offerings.

Skyworks Shares Surge as CEO Signals Qorvo Merger Could Close Soon

Shares of Skyworks Solutions surged 19.36% this week after CEO Philip Brace updated investors about the status of a key merger.

Brace said he was "very confident" that the pending merger with Qorvo will close "this calendar year" and that the companies are "preparing to close this fiscal year." That would place the closing at the end of September or in early October.

"We're just waiting right now, I would say. These things are never certain. And we're kind of around the airport just waiting for permission to land," Brace said of the merger. "Hopefully it comes soon and we're champing at the bit, ready to go."

Investors have been focused on the merger between Skyworks and Qorvo as a massive shift for the analog and mixed-signal semiconductors industry.

Ciena Rises 9% as Goldman Sachs Optical Module Market Upgrade Continues to Fuel Momentum

Ciena rose nearly 9% this week. The rally extends a series of gains driven by a major Goldman Sachs report and strong fiscal Q3 results.

On the news front, Goldman Sachs recently published a deep-dive report on the global optical module industry, raising its market size forecast by 115% to approximately $148.5 billion by 2028. Shipment projections for 1.6T and above ultra-high-speed optical modules were increased by 29% to 61%. As a leading global optical networking equipment provider, Ciena stands as a direct beneficiary of the expanding addressable market.

Further underpinning the stock, Ciena reported fiscal Q3 adjusted EPS of $2.11, beating the consensus estimate of $1.73 by roughly 22% and surging 215% year-over-year. Revenue of $1.67 billion also topped expectations. The company raised its full-year revenue guidance to $6.42 billion, above the Street estimate of $6.34 billion. Multiple analysts maintain overweight ratings, with a mean price target near $520.

AMD Rises 8% as Piper Sandler Initiates Coverage with Overweight Rating and $600 Target

Advanced Micro Devices rose 8% this week. The stock rebounded alongside a broad semiconductor sector rally after declining 3.36% in the previous session.

On the news front, Piper Sandler initiated coverage of Advanced Micro Devices with an Overweight rating and a $600 price target, citing agentic AI as a catalyst for accelerating compute demand, with AMD positioned as a key beneficiary alongside NVIDIA. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index expanded gains to 2% on the same day, with Intel up over 3%, NVIDIA up over 1%, Marvell Technology up over 4%, and Broadcom up over 1%.

Industry data provided additional support, as SEMI reported Q2 global semiconductor equipment sales reached $40.53 billion, up 23% year-over-year, reflecting sustained expansion in AI compute infrastructure demand. Separately, CEO Lisa Su's family trust filed Form 144 notices to sell a combined 95,000 shares valued at approximately $49.5 million.