US equity benchmarks closed lower on Tuesday, dragged down by a sharp selloff in heavyweight chipmakers. The S&P 500 fell 1.4%, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped 3.3% as AI infrastructure names—particularly semiconductor and memory producers—slid on growing doubts that hyperscalers’ AI outlays will generate sufficient returns. Sentiment was further pressured by news that SK Hynix is slowing production of advanced AI chips to free capacity for commodity DRAM, signaling that demand for compute may be moderating.
Chip stocks were broadly weaker, with Nvidia down 4.2%, Broadcom 3.1%, Qualcomm 8%, AMD 5.8%, Micron 13.2%, and Sandisk 11.2%. Tesla and Oracle each declined 5.8%. In contrast, SpaceX gained 1%, rebounding as the company returned to the debt markets with a bond issue just a week after its IPO, underscoring concerns about the scale of capital expenditures in the sector.
US Treasury yields stayed elevated despite a pullback in energy prices, as last week’s hawkish dot plot continued to weigh on rate expectations and constrained any relief for traditional cyclical sectors. Relative strength in healthcare and consumer staples helped the Dow finish close to unchanged.
