Nasdaq 100 futures dropped roughly 2% on July 17 as a brutal selloff in semiconductor stocks picked up momentum. Bitcoin fell about 2% to $62,790.91, reinforcing the increasingly tight correlation between risk-on tech bets and digital assets.
The chip carnage, by the numbers
The damage across the semiconductor sector has been sweeping. Micron’s stock declined between 4.7% and 8% over recent sessions. Sandisk shares dropped around 7.3%. SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chip giant, experienced double-digit percentage declines during Asian trading hours.
The PHLX Semiconductor Index, the benchmark tracker for the chip sector known by its ticker .SOX, had already fallen 4.65% on July 7. That single-day drop trimmed its year-to-date gains to roughly 74%.
Samsung’s situation is perhaps the most telling. The company reported a record profit, the kind of headline that would normally send shares climbing. Instead, the market basically shrugged. Record earnings couldn’t outrun the narrative that the entire AI hardware trade might be overcooked.
