{"id":454635,"date":"2026-02-05T03:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T03:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:18:19","slug":"us-tech-stocks-hit-by-fresh-wave-of-selling-as-chipmakers-qualcomm-and-amd-tumble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/454635\/","title":{"rendered":"US tech stocks hit by fresh wave of selling as chipmakers Qualcomm and AMD tumble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n

Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

US tech stocks were hit by a fresh wave of selling on Wednesday as disappointing results from chipmaker AMD fuelled a sell-off sparked by concerns about the impact of AI on software businesses. <\/p>\n

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.5 per cent and the benchmark S&P 500 index slipped 0.5 per cent, extending Tuesday\u2019s declines.<\/p>\n

The moves came as AMD shed 17.3 per cent \u2014 its biggest fall since 2017 \u2014 after it reported its earnings. The chipmaker reported strong first-quarter sales guidance and higher than expected revenue in the fourth quarter of last year, but \u201cexpectations [had] gotten a bit too high\u201d in the run-up to its results, Jefferies\u2019 analysts said.<\/p>\n

One-off data centre-related sales to China had also accounted for a larger than anticipated share of its revenue, analysts said.<\/p>\n

Rival chipmaker Qualcomm\u2019s disappointing sales outlook knocked its shares after the market closed, falling about 9 per cent. <\/p>\n

Qualcomm said it expected $10.6bn in revenue in the current quarter compared with the $11.2bn Wall Street was expecting. It reported $12.3bn in revenue for the previous quarter, in line with expectations. <\/p>\n

Chief executive Cristiano Amon said the lower outlook was \u201c100 per cent related\u201d to industry-wide shortages of memory chips.<\/p>\n

The shortage was caused by memory suppliers prioritising their output of high-end memory hardware used in data centres over the more traditional memory used in consumer electronics, Amon said.<\/p>\n

Other stocks linked to AI were caught up in Wednesday\u2019s sell-off. Palantir, previously an AI high-flyer, fell 11.6 per cent and memory manufacturer SanDisk dropped 16 per cent. Chipmaker Broadcom gave up 3.8 per cent, software group Oracle lost 5.1 per cent and Nvidia declined 3.4 per cent.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin, a speculative asset that typically falls when investors are uneasy, fell 3.1 per cent to $73,318, bringing its loss for 2026 to 17 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current indiscriminate sell-off resembles the DeepSeek-driven decline of January 2025, which ultimately proved unfounded,\u201d Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya said on Wednesday, referring to the hundreds of billions of dollars briefly wiped off the value of major US tech stocks by the advances of the Chinese AI start-up early last year.<\/p>\n

\"Line<\/p>\n

Software stocks have sold off sharply in recent months and were hit particularly hard on Tuesday following AI group Anthropic<\/a>\u2019s recent release of marketing, legal and finance additions to its Claude Cowork tool. <\/p>\n

A JPMorgan index tracking US software stocks has dropped 18 per cent since the start of the year and is close to its lowest level since President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called liberation day tariffs rattled global financial markets last April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis concept that AI will cannibalise the most tech-savvy firms first is an interesting new narrative in the AI story arc,\u201d said Mike Zigmont at Visdom Investment Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil the market either rejects the narrative or modifies its existential consequences, it will be difficult for tech to resume its bullish trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

European stocks in the sector also dropped. The London Stock Exchange Group closed slightly lower, adding to a 12.8 per cent fall on Tuesday. FTSE 100 media and data company Relx finished the day down 1.3 per cent, after shedding 14.4 per cent in the previous session. <\/p>\n

Advertising companies were also hit, with Publicis declining another 2.2 per cent on top of 9.2 per cent on Tuesday and WPP dropping a further 3.7 per cent after Tuesday\u2019s 11.8 per cent fall. <\/p>\n

Jim Reid, head of macro research at Deutsche Bank, wrote: \u201cRecent months have seen a clear shift in markets from AI euphoria towards more differentiation between companies, and growing concern about its disruption to existing business models.\u201d <\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Shares of several software companies listed in Asia fell sharply earlier on Wednesday, including Australia\u2019s Xero, China\u2019s Hong Kong-listed Kingsoft Corporation and Indian IT services groups Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.<\/p>\n

Marija Veitmane, head of equity research at State Street, said the market\u2019s \u201capocalyptic\u201d reaction was \u201coverly pessimistic\u201d about the impact of the new technology on some of the data companies. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we can completely replace data analytics and software writing,\u201d she said. \u201cOf course, there is adjustment, but those companies will end up being more efficient.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incremental improvement, rather than total revolution.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-454635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}