A selloff in global tech stocks intensified Tuesday, leaving investors worried about higher interest rates, stretched valuations and the prospect that the billions of dollars in artificial-intelligence spending will outstrip the expectation of blockbuster profits.
The declines dragged the Nasdaq composite down 2.2%. Sandisk and Micron -- key members of a small group of memory stocks whose parabolic gains have lifted stocks near records -- both fell more than 13%.
And a new challenge looms Wednesday, when Micron reports earnings to investors now battered by recent volatility. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index has slid for four of the past five trading sessions and moved at least 1% on six consecutive trading days.
Surging stocks can be vulnerable to sharp reversals, and crucial pillars of support for the rally remain in place, some analysts said. The economy has been strong, and chip makers were among the companies posting blockbuster profits during the recent reporting period. The U.S.-Iran peace agreement has reduced pressure on oil prices and could help lower inflation later in the year.
At the same time, the Federal Reserve last week signaled rates may still rise by the end of the year to fight war-fueled inflation. The S&P 500 lost more than 1% last Wednesday after Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh repeatedly emphasized that officials are "unambiguously and unanimously" committed to bringing inflation back to the central bank's 2% target.
Other worries came from price cuts by some AI companies, and fears about the massive borrowing and spending required for the data-center build-out.
Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said she expects AI models to grow increasingly interchangeable and commoditized, with usage flowing to the cheapest. That has boosted worries that the already-heavy spending on infrastructure like computer chips could grow costlier with higher rates.
"All of that means that these business models are gonna turn out to be more cyclical, and that means they're gonna be a lot more rate sensitive, " she said.
Shalett added that much of the recent decline was rooted in positioning, with hedge-fund clients of her company's prime brokerage starting to reduce risk last week. And despite the recent volatility, shares of major chip makers remain much higher than at the beginning of the year. Tuesday's big slides from Sandisk and Micron trimmed their 2026 gains to 727% and 269%, respectively.
"In the bigger scheme of things, I'm more inclined to be a buyer in today's market than a seller," she said.
Tuesday's declines, however, were global. U.S. traders woke up to a 10% fall in South Korea's Kospi index, which is dominated by chip makers Samsung and SK Hynix. Some pinned the severity of declines on rampant speculation from individuals and traders using borrowed money to turbocharge bets, which have combined to render this year's top performing global index vulnerable to reversals in the AI trade.
The worries spilled over to the U.S. session, where major indexes opened sharply lower for a second day, extending a slide that on Monday hit shares of so-called AI hyperscalers including Alphabet and Microsoft. Broad benchmarks, and the hyperscalers, regained some ground by Tuesday afternoon, but the carnage in chip stocks remained. The S&P 500 slid 1.4%.
But the declines were concentrated in tech, underscoring how dependent major indexes have become on skyrocketing shares of a handful of companies. Six of the S&P 500's 11 sectors posted gains, including consumer staples, which rose 1.8%, and healthcare, which added 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed the other indexes, slipping less than 0.1%, or around 46 points.
In another demonstration of just how important semiconductor companies have become, eight of the 11 most-traded stocks by Interactive Brokers clients in the past week were tied to the industry, the brokerage said. The other three were Tesla, SpaceX and Microsoft.
And many analysts said it isn't surprising that volatility has spiked after U.S. stocks climbed steadily to post one of their best two-month periods in history across April and May. That is especially true for those nervous that some tech stocks are more sensitive to higher rates than they have been in the past, especially now that derivative traders are nearly pricing in two rate increases this year.
"Semiconductors are structurally more volatile and cyclical than the hyperscalers that carried markets through the last hiking cycle," said New York Life Investment Management global market strategist Julia Hermann. Semiconductor companies "are likely to be more rate sensitive, exposing the market to the consequences of tighter policy," she said.
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