Chip Stocks Rebound After Global AI Selloff
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- Micron rose 3.63% and Sandisk gained 2.52% in premarket trading on Wednesday, rebounding after both memory stocks tumbled 13% on Tuesday; the Roundhill Memory ETF added 3.7% premarket after dropping 14% in the prior regular session.
- The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2% on Tuesday and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slid as investors dumped chipmakers, with Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm each losing more than 5%.
- Samsung Electronics jumped more than 6.46% and SK Hynix added 0.98% on Wednesday after both plunged over 12% the previous session, pulling the Kospi Index up more than 3.26%.
- Japanese and Chinese chip stocks were mixed — Tokyo Electron fell 4.19% while SoftBank Group gained 1.29%; Tencent rose 3.38% but JD.com dropped 1.65%.
- European chip stocks were mostly steady, with ST Microelectronics up 1.21%, ASML rising 1.04%, and Infineon gaining 0.52%.
- Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives said channel checks across Asia and enterprise AI demand trends showed "no cracks in the armor," framing the South Korean selloff as a pause after the Kospi's near 100% rally year-to-date.
Why it matters: Chipmakers and AI-linked stocks collectively shed billions in a single Tuesday session before a partial Wednesday rebound, directly testing whether the year's rally — which saw the Kospi gain nearly 100% — rests on durable enterprise AI demand or stretched positioning. With Samsung alone plunging 12% before bouncing 6.46%, the episode shows how a single day's risk-off move can overwhelm company-specific fundamentals across the global chip complex.
