Investors dumped semiconductor stocks on Tuesday after results from Samsung Electronics failed to meet Wall Street’s lofty artificial intelligence demand expectations.
Shares dropped 8% even after the South Korean electronics company’s quarterly profit surpassed both Nvidia and Apple, and the company said it expects operating profit to jump 1,800%.
The results are the latest sign on Wall Street that sometimes beating results isn’t enough to please investors in the AI revolution. Previously, this market phenomenon has contributed to post-earnings declines for Nvidia and major cybersecurity stocks such as CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.
Korea-listed shares of South Korea’s Kospi fell about 5% in sympathy with Samsung. SK Hynix, which is slated to list shares on the Nasdaq this Friday, dropped about 6%. The company plans to raise $28 billion in the second-largest sale after SpaceX.
Tuesday’s selloff could also stem from a recalibration in expectations after memory’s historic run, or investors readying for SK Hynix’s listing this week.
U.S memory makers Sandisk and Micron Technology dropped about 7% and 5%, respectively, in sympathy, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF slumped about 5%. Intel dropped 9% each, while Marvell Technology, Lam Research and Applied Materials slid over 6% each. Advanced Micro Devices fell about 6%.
Memory chip stocks have seen a massive run-up this year as a supply crunch, fueled by unrelenting artificial demand, allows businesses to set pricing. That’s lifted shares of Micron and Sandisk more than 229% and 581%, respectively, this year.
However, investors are growing increasingly concerned that AI spending can’t keep up with skyrocketing memory prices.
Already, soaring memory costs have forced companies, including Apple and Microsoft, to hike prices and offset the higher fees associated with building everyday consumer products.
Tuesday’s selloff wasn’t helped by a report that Chinese AI startup Deepseek is working on its own chip to sidestep U.S. export bans and its dependence on Nvidia.
