Artificial intelligence and semiconductor stocks experienced significant declines on Thursday as investor sentiment grew tense following former President Donald Trump's warning that the U.S. could launch an "extremely severe" strike against Iran in the coming weeks.
The market reaction was swift, with U.S. stocks opening sharply lower. Concurrently, oil prices surged dramatically, with Brent crude rising 7.6% and WTI crude jumping 12.2%. Rising oil prices often exacerbate market volatility. Subsequently, selling pressure quickly spread across the entire semiconductor sector. NVIDIA fell approximately 2%, while Advanced Micro Devices dropped nearly 3%. Broadcom and Qualcomm also recorded declines between 2% and 3%. Micron Technology faced greater impact, falling about 5%, while ARM Holdings and Marvell Technology each declined roughly 4%.
The impact was not limited to chip stocks. Networking and optical communication-related stocks such as Arista, Lumentum, Coherent, and Corning also saw declines, while equipment stocks like ASML Holding NV and Lam Research fell around 3%. A few stocks showed relative resilience, with Applied Optoelectronics jumping 7% and Intel rising 4.9%.
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