adminGlobal semiconductor stocks fell on Friday after a lackluster set of results from U.S. chip firm Intel sent its shares cratering, and a global market sell-off weighed on some of the biggest names in the tech sector.
Intel shares fell 21.51% at 04:37 a.m. ET in premarket trade in the U.S. on Friday, after the company reported a big miss on earnings in the June quarter and said that it would lay off over 15% of its employees as part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan.
A number of major U.S. chip names also fell on Friday in U.S. premarket trade, with Nvidia trading around 3.5% lower at 05:53 a.m. ET. Adding pressure to the stock is a report from The Information that Nvidia is the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust investigation.
The DOJ is looking at complaints that the chip giant allegedly abused its market dominance in artificial intelligence chips,” The Information reported.
CNBC has reached out to the DOJ and Nvidia for comment on the report.
In Asia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. — known as TSMC — closed 4.6% lower in Taiwan, and Samsung was also more than 4% lower at the end of the session in South Korea. TSMC is the world’s biggest manufacturer of chips, while Samsung is the largest memory semiconductor firm globally.
Samsung rival SK Hynix, which supplies U.S. giant Nvidia, also fell sharply to close more than 10% lower.
The sell-off continued in Europe. Shares of ASML, which sells key tools required to make cutting-edge chips, were more than 6% lower at around 4:23 a.m. ET, in the Netherlands. ASMI, which also trades in the Netherlands, was off by 9%. STMicroelectronics and Infineon were both lower.
Intel’s results add to the mixed picture across the semiconductor sector, where companies like AMD and Nvidia continue to prosper from the boom in artificial intelligence. Other players, like Qualcomm and Arm, are not yet reaping the benefits of the technology in their financial results.
Adding to the pressure on chip stocks is a global equity sell-off that began in the U.S. and has fed its way through to Asia and Europe. This especially weighed on tech-heavy Nasdaq and on chip stocks.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF, which includes major names in the sector, closed roughly 6.5% lower in the U.S. on Thursday.
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