Nvidia Sell-Off Triggers 10.8% Kospi Crash, Apple Reclaims Top Spot
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- South Korea's Kospi index closed 10.8% lower on Tuesday after an initial 8% slide triggered a 20-minute circuit-breaker halt, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both falling more than 13% as tech led the sell-off.
- Nvidia fell 5% in New York on Monday, ceding the title of the world's most valuable listed company to Apple, which has risen roughly 25% year-to-date after staying largely outside the AI capex race.
- Jane Sydenham, investment director at Rathbones, said the sell-off was triggered by a Wall Street Journal report that Nvidia is in talks to supply around $250bn to OpenAI for a massive data-centre project, with the BBC noting it has contacted both companies.
- Japan's Nikkei 225 closed almost 4% lower on tech weakness, while the UK's FTSE 100, France's Cac 40 and Germany's Dax 40 shrugged off the AI concerns and opened roughly 0.6% higher on lighter AI exposure.
- ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's biggest memory chip maker, saw shares soar nearly 470% on its Shanghai debut on Monday, with the company saying IPO proceeds will fund production expansion and R&D into DRAM chips used in AI data centres.
- Ten Cap founder Jun Bei Liu told the BBC investors are also worried about intensifying competition from China and are taking profit off the table, though she expects reinvestment after the US holiday season.
- SK Hynix US-listed shares fell 7.5% on Monday to well below the $149 (£112.11) offer price from its record-breaking Nasdaq debut on 9 July, underscoring how quickly the AI-driven rally has unwound after the Kospi lost roughly a third of its value since mid-June.
Why it matters: Investors are actively testing the assumption that hyperscaler AI capex will earn a return — the trigger was a reported $250bn Nvidia-to-OpenAI data-centre commitment that makes the spending more concrete and harder to dismiss as hype, with Samsung and SK Hynix each giving up 13%+ and Nvidia losing the world's-most-valuable-company crown to Apple in a single session.
