A trillion dollars vanished from the world’s top AI and semiconductor companies this week. The rout, now spanning eight straight trading days for the iShares Semiconductor ETF, accelerated Thursday as rate hike fears collided with sobering financial disclosures from a leading AI startup.
The catalyst arrived Wednesday, when hotter than expected US inflation data for September pushed markets to price in more aggressive Federal Reserve tightening. The Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.88 percent on that news alone. Meanwhile, Anthropic revealed to private investors that its quarterly revenue growth slowed sharply, from roughly 145 percent in the second quarter to about 50 percent in the third. That disclosure landed like a warning flare across an already jittery AI trade.
By Thursday, Nvidia dropped 1.84 percent, AMD lost 1.5 percent, Intel shed 2.8 percent, and Dell Technologies cratered 6.8 percent. The damage proved far worse overseas. SK Hynix collapsed more than 10 percent in a single session, while Samsung Electronics fell 8.73 percent. SoftBank Group plunged 7.9 percent. Advantest, a Japanese chip testing firm, cratered nearly 14 percent. European names suffered too: Infineon slid 5 percent and ASM International lost 7 percent.
According to Dow Jones Market Data, the chip sector ETF has now recorded its longest losing streak in 11 years, with a cumulative decline of roughly 12.7 percent.
Competition from China added fuel to the fire. ChangXin Memory Technologies announced an architectural breakthrough allowing denser memory storage. Elon Musk responded immediately, posting on X that China would produce large volumes of memory chips by 2028. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Intel’s chief executive both warned Monday that financing constraints, not chip supply or power access, could become the biggest obstacle to AI expansion.
Analysts remain divided on whether the selloff signals something deeper. Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives called the pullback a buying opportunity, insisting the AI infrastructure boom remains in its infancy. The real warning sign, he noted, would be hyperscalers cutting capital expenditure plans, contract cancellations, or falling GPU rental prices. None of those signals have appeared yet. The coming earnings season will reveal how thoroughly investors have priced in these inflation concerns.
