The robot basket split cleanly along the software/hardware line — Unity +5.6% and PTC +5.4% as the simulation layer led, while Teradyne −11.7% was swept into the semiconductor-test rout.

Unity Software (U) led the robot basket on Wednesday, up 5.6% to $30.19, on a fresh analyst price-target increase that reinforced the market's growing confidence in its turnaround — improving profitability off Q1 revenue of $508M, with management guiding to GAAP profitability by the fourth quarter. Unity sits on the simulation-and-software chokepoint: its real-time 3D engine is one of the environments in which humanoid and mobile-robot policies are trained and validated before they ever touch hardware. The read of the session was that the software layer of physical AI held its bid precisely because it carries none of the semiconductor cyclicality that broke the rest of the market — PTC (PTC) rose 5.4% to $119.78 and Synopsys (SNPS) +1.9% alongside it, the design-and-digital-twin names firming as a group.

Teradyne (TER) was the laggard, down 11.7% to $427.34, and the move had little to do with its robotics arm. Teradyne owns Universal Robots on the platforms-and-integrators chokepoint, but the bulk of the business is semiconductor test — automated test equipment — and on a session when the whole semicap complex cratered (KLA, Applied Materials, and Lam all down double digits), a name trading at a premium multiple gave it back hard. The sensing-and-edge-silicon nodes went with it: Allegro MicroSystems (ALGM) −9.2% to $63.20 and STMicroelectronics (STM) −5.6%, the magnetic-position and MCU suppliers that ride the same chip tape.

The rest of the basket confirmed the divide. On the actuators-and-precision-gears chokepoint, the Japanese motion names held or rose in their own sessions — Yaskawa (YASKY) +2.4%, Nabtesco (NCTKY) +2.5% — insulated from the US tech unwind. The clear drag was the rare-earth-magnet chokepoint that robotics shares with the drone vertical: USA Rare Earth (USAR) −7.4% to $19.98 and MP Materials (MP) −3.1%, both pressured by China's late-June move to add them to its export-control list and by the prospect of a US–China rare-earth deal reopening Chinese supply. Batteries lagged too (EnerSys −5.7%), while Tesla (TSLA) held +1.1% to $425.30 ahead of an Optimus-relevant print.

The catalyst path is earnings- and event-dense. Tesla's Q2 call is the marquee item, framed against a targeted Optimus V3 reveal and the start of Fremont production, and NVIDIA's fiscal Q2 (with the Isaac GR00T humanoid stack) anchors the compute-and-simulation node. Teradyne and Cognex report Q2 on the test-and-sensing chokepoints, the ABB Robotics divestiture to SoftBank is expected to close around mid-year, and Symbotic prints fiscal Q3 ahead of RoboBusiness (Santa Clara, Oct 19–21).