Asia’s top chip stocks tumbled yesterday, ensnared in an escalating US-China tech race that has erased more than US$240 billion from the sector’s global market value.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, plunged a record 8.3 percent, while Samsung Electronics Co and Tokyo Electron Ltd also declined.
The selloff spread to the foreign-exchange market as investors tally up the damage from the sweeping curbs the US is imposing on companies that conduct technology business with China.
Photo: RITCHIE B. TONGO, EPA-EFE
The measures imposed by the administration of US President Joe Biden erect barriers of entry to China’s market by limiting the ability of US firms to sell equipment and tech to their Chinese counterparts. There are concerns that the restrictions could spread if Washington widens the initiative to include other countries, while questions also remain over the scope and final impact of the moves.
“It is difficult to call a bottom on the performance of the chip sector,” Global CIO Office chief executive officer Gary Dugan said. “The big story is that the West is becoming profoundly more concerned about security around any form of technology. We see no reason to re-enter the sector for the moment despite the profound poor performance.”
US chip stocks were on track to decline for a third day, with Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Qualcomm Inc and Texas Instruments Inc all down more than 1 percent yesterday before the bell.
Chip toolmaker ASML Holding NV traded down 2.3 percent in Amsterdam, bringing three-day losses to more than 11 percent.
The US announced the export curbs on Friday and there have been suggestions that similar actions might be deployed in other countries to ensure international cooperation.
The announcement spurred a two-day rout of more than 9 percent in the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index, which closed on Monday at its lowest level since November 2020.
Samsung lost as much as 3.9 percent, the most in a year, while SK Hynix Inc, one of the world’s largest makers of memory chips that has facilities in China, slid 3.5 percent before paring losses.
In Tokyo, Renesas Electronics Co shed almost 6 percent, with Tokyo Electron losing a similar amount.
The current rout has already wiped out more than US$240 billion from chip stocks worldwide since Thursday’s close, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
The selloff extended to currency markets, with the South Korean won sliding as much as 1.8 percent versus the greenback while the New Taiwan dollar declined 0.7 percent.
The curbs are a “big setback to China” and “bad news” for global semiconductors, Nomura Holdings Inc analyst David Wong (黃作慶) wrote in a note on Monday.
China’s localization efforts might also be “at risk as it may not be able to use advanced foundries in Taiwan and [South] Korea,” Wong wrote.
Shares of Chinese chipmakers extended their recent losses yesterday, with Morgan Stanley saying that the broader restrictions around supercomputers and multinational capital investment in China could be “disruptive.”
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Nvidia Corp’s GB300 platform is expected to account for 70 to 80 percent of global artificial intelligence (AI) server rack shipments this year, while adoption of its next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is to gradually gain momentum after the third quarter of the year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said. Servers based on Nvidia’s GB300 chips entered mass production last quarter and they are expected to become the mainstay models for Taiwanese server manufacturers this year, Trendforce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) said in an interview. This year is expected to be a breakout year for AI servers based on a variety of chips, as
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS