Global Chip Sell-Off: $1 Trillion Wiped Out

According to Business Insider, a broad sell-off in shares of chipmakers and memory-chip producers continued for a second consecutive day on Thursday, with the market value of the sector’s largest companies falling by more than $1 trillion over the course of the week.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has dropped 12% from its early-October peak and is approaching its seventh consecutive day of losses, which would mark its worst losing streak since May 2025.
Shares of South Korea’s SK Hynix fell 11% and Samsung dropped 9%. Nvidia declined 1%, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Broadcom each lost 2%, and AMD fell 3%.
The sell-off was driven by concerns over high technology-stock valuations, growing competition from China’s CXMT in memory chips, and higher-than-expected US inflation. Annual inflation reached 3.7% in September, above the market forecast of 3.6%, while producer prices rose 6.3% year over year, their fastest increase since 2022.
Markets put the probability of at least one more Federal Reserve rate hike by the end of the year at 92%. Rising borrowing costs, concerns about excessive artificial intelligence spending, and uncertainty over future technology-sector earnings added to investor concerns.
Despite the sell-off, the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered by more than 500 points, while the Nasdaq remained largely unchanged.




