Asian equities suffered a sharp drop with chip players taking the lead as the biggest losers.
📉 Chip Stocks Take the Hit
- The AI trade hit another pothole Tuesday as semiconductor stocks across Asia tumbled in unison.
- SK Hynix plunged more than 15%, while Samsung Electronics lost over 14%, extending a brutal selloff that started on Wall Street yesterday and quickly spilled across the Pacific. And it’s now waiting to .
- The pain wasn't limited to memory chips. Samsung SDI dropped more than 12%, LG Innotek slid nearly 20%, Seoul Semiconductor fell about 8% and LG Chem lost over 7% as investors rushed to cut exposure to AI-linked names.
- For a sector that has spent the past year acting like it discovered perpetual motion, gravity suddenly made an aggressive comeback.
🚨 Japan Joins the Selloff
- Japan's semiconductor heavyweights weren't spared either. Tokyo Electron tumbled nearly 13%, Advantest fell more than 10%, while SoftBank Group — often viewed as an AI proxy through its Arm stake — lost 6.3%.
- Memory-chip maker Kioxia suffered one of the steepest declines, plunging more than 20%. The broad selloff suggests investors aren't picking individual losers — they're temporarily stepping away from the entire semiconductor story.
- A proxy is a stock investors use to gain exposure to a broader trend. In this case, SoftBank often moves alongside AI sentiment because of its investments across the sector.
🌎 Wall Street Feeling It Too
- The pressure wasn't staying in Asia. In US premarket trading, listed on Nasdaq fell about 4%, while Micron and Sandisk each lost roughly 5%, pointing to another weak session for American chip stocks.
- Sandisk has now surrendered roughly half its value from in about a month, underscoring just how quickly momentum trades can reverse once confidence begins to wobble.