US chip stocks slide as inflation and AI debt fears unsettle investors

US chip stocks fell sharply on Wednesday, extending a recent slide driven by rising inflation and concerns about the rush of borrowing to fund investments in AI infrastructure.

The blue-chip S&P 500 was down 1.3 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropped 2.2 per cent in afternoon trading in New York. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks the major US chip companies, fell 4.5 per cent, leaving it off almost 12 per cent since last Tuesday.

Nvidia and Meta both fell about 3.5 per cent, while Oracle lost 9.3 per cent and semiconductor group Marvell shed 7.3 per cent.

Wednesday’s steep declines came after rising fuel prices triggered by the Iran war pushed US inflation to a higher-than-expected 3.7 per cent in September and as a growing crowd of investors and tech company executives warn about the sustainability of and potential returns from the AI investment boom.

“Names in the memory space and the neoclouds are getting hit because there’s an emerging concern around whether capital markets can support all this [AI infrastructure] spending,” said Eric Johnston, chief market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald Asset Management.

Tech companies are racing to raise debt to pay for data centres and the chips that power AI, pushing aside worries about when these investments will pay off.

CoreWeave’s chief executive Mike Intrator on Wednesday said the market was acting “irrationally” as the company’s shares fell 16 per cent. He blamed the sinking sentiment on the pulled initial public offering of fellow neocloud Firmus in Australia, as well as financing issues for rival AI infrastructure companies.

The yield on a CoreWeave bond maturing in July 2032 this week climbed to 15 per cent — and is trading at a price generally considered distressed. Elon Musk responded “yikes” to a graph on social media site X illustrating the move.

Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan on Monday said some tech investors “have no clue what they are investing in” and warned of how the market could at times resemble a “casino”. Shares in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest memory-chip makers, fell 7.4 per cent and 10.1 per cent respectively the following day.

The hot US inflation data, which prompted a modest increase in market bets for Federal Reserve interest rate rises, also added to the downbeat sentiment on Wednesday.

Higher rates erode the valuations investors assign to fast-growing companies since they dent the present value of their future cash flows. The Nasdaq 100 is currently trading at about 21 times forward earnings, down sharply from its 2026 high.

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US equity indices remain close to record levels despite the recent slide, with gains for a small number of tech companies having outweighed big losses for utilities, real estate companies and consumer staples that are particularly sensitive to rising interest rates.

Bumper earnings forecasts remain a source of optimism. Analysts expect S&P 500 earnings to rise 27 per cent in the September quarter from a year earlier. However, Micron and Nvidia alone are forecast to account for about one-third of that index-level figure.