By Tae Kim and Elsa Ohlen
A small decline in Nvidia stock picked up speed Tuesday after earnings results from ASML appeared to have been released a day earlier than expected. ASML's latest results were briefly available on the company's website, despite a scheduled earnings release date of Wednesday.
The link was quickly removed, but not before investors reacted to an apparent disappointing forecast from the company.
According to FactSet's summary of the leaked results, ASML's 2025 total net sales are now forecast at 30 billion to 35 billion euros, versus a consensus estimate of 35.8 billion euros.
The Dutch company makes the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines critical for manufacturing advanced semiconductors. Its customers include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Samsung Electronics, and Intel.
"While there continue to be strong developments and upside potential in AI, other market segments are taking longer to recover. It now appears the recovery is more gradual than previously expected. This is expected to continue in 2025, which is leading to customer cautiousness," ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said in the leaked news release. "Regarding Logic, the competitive foundry dynamics have resulted in a slower ramp of new nodes at certain customers, leading to several fab push outs and resulting changes in litho demand timing, in particular EUV."
ASML stock quickly tumbled 16% on the report and Nvidia shares dropped more than 4%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF was down 3.9%.
ASML, TSMC and Samsung Electronics didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about ASML's results. Intel declined to comment.
ASML's disappointing outlook isn't necessarily bad for Nvidia. ASML explicitly said AI-related demand remains strong and the weakness stems from the logic chip business. The most likely culprit may be Intel, which makes central processing units, or CPUs, for PCs and servers.
Nvidia has consistently said demand for its AI GPUs is still robust.
Earlier this month, the company stated in an investor presentation "demand continues to exceed supply" even after supply has expanded significantly this year.
Last week, Nvidia management also said Blackwell GPU products are "booked out 12 months," which means if a customer puts in an order today they won't receive the product until late next year.
Nvidia's most important Blackwell AI server system is also now shipping. On Tuesday, Dell Technologies announced PowerEdge XE9712 Nvidia GB200 NVL72-based server "is sampling for select customers now."
The NVL72 is the star Nvidia's Blackwell lineup. It stitches together 36 GB200 Superchips, with each GB200 connecting two Blackwell GPUs to an Nvidia Grace CPU so that they can work more efficiently together.
This means each NVL72 system has 72 Blackwell GPUs all linked together for an unprecedented density of computing power. Earlier this year, KeyBanc said the NVL72 will cost about $3.8 million and represent the vast majority of Nvidia's GB200 shipments.
Ultimately, ASML's business trends may not have a direct correlation with Nvidia's results.
Write to Tae Kim at tae.kim@barrons.com and Elsa Ohlen at elsa.ohlen@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 15, 2024 12:01 ET (16:01 GMT)
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