Chip stocks around the world sold off sharply Tuesday, the latest chapter in the monthslong jitters surrounding artificial intelligence, memory and chip stocks. <\/p>\n
The sell-off pushed the Nasdaq-100 index into correction territory earlier Tuesday, which is a drop of 10% or more from its most recent record high. The index, which tracks the top 100 nonfinancial companies traded on the Nasdaq exchange, ended the day down 1%.<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index on Tuesday sank into bear market territory, which is a 20% drop or more from its most recent record high.<\/p>\n
Shares of several chip and memory giants fell significantly. Sandisk ended the day down 14%, while AMD, ARM Holdings, Micron and Seagate plunged more than 8%. <\/p>\n
Dell Technologies, which is a leading producer of data center servers that use chips and memory made by those firms, tumbled 8.1%. Intel shares slid 5.8%.<\/p>\n
The selling kicked off overnight in Asia, with stocks traded on markets in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the primary manufacturers of memory used in AI data centers, plunged more than 15%. Kioxia, another computer storage maker, plummeted 18%. <\/p>\n
Overnight, South Korea\u2019s Kospi stock index extended its decline from its most recent record high to more than 30%. That decline has occurred rapidly, over just the last 25 trading days, Bespoke Investment Group noted.<\/p>\n
The steep decline of that index follows a stunning 300% rally that started in April 2025 and ended towards the end of June.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter one of the most parabolic rallies in history for a major global index, the KOSPI is currently in the midst of one of its fastest-ever bear-market drops,\u201d Bespoke analysts wrote.<\/p>\n
The latest wave of investor unease followed a report Monday that a Chinese state-backed firm was beginning mass production of domestic chipmaking tools. <\/p>\n
However, the report did not name the company. NBC News was not able to verify the report. <\/p>\n
Still, shares of established firms that make chip manufacturing equipment such as ASML, Canon and Nikon fell sharply on the news.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s moves also come ahead of major earnings reports later in the week from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and other companies that are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build AI data centers. Those results could prove pivotal to the trajectory of the market. <\/p>\n