Investors looking for an excuse to take profit on semiconductor stocks might have just got one. Nvidia and other processor companies dropped on Tuesday amid worries about whether ChatGPT-developer OpenAI can meet all its spending commitments.
OpenAI has recently missed its own targets for new users and revenue, leading to concerns among executives about whether it will be able to fulfill its commitments, The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Nvidia shares dropped 1.6% to $213.17 on Tuesday. The stock rose 4% on Monday, closing at a record high, having recently broken out of a monthslong trading range of between $165 and $195.
Among other chip makers, Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday fell 3.4% and Broadcom declined 4.4%.
Meanwhile, the Journal article also weighed on Oracle, with shares dropping 4.1%.
Chip stocks have been on a remarkable run recently with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, a sector benchmark, rising 40% from its March 30 trough. However, ultimately they depend on massive spending on infrastructure by big artificial-intelligence companies such as OpenAI.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar has told other company leaders that the company may not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue does not grow fast enough, while OpenAI’s board of directors is now looking more closely at its data center deals to secure more computing power despite the business slowdown, according to the report.
OpenAI’s head of business and financial communications called the Journal’s report “clickbait” in an email to Barron’s. “The business is firing on all cylinders,” he said, adding that consumer strength is starting to show up and enterprise business is “in the best place it has ever been.”
The company told the Journal it was “buying as much compute as we can.”
This comes amid increased competition from Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, which is eating into OpenAI’s market share, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.
“We believe OpenAI has been tracking very high demand on both the consumer and enterprise front and we strongly disagree with the notion that growth is weakening. We would be buyers of AI driven tech stocks this morning and in particular Oracle on this way overreaction to this WSJ report,” Ives wrote Tuesday.
Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom all have supply deals with OpenAI. Nvidia invested $30 billion in OpenAI’s latest funding round, although it scaled down a previous commitment to put in up to $100 billion.
Intel—which unlike Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Broadcom doesn’t have supply deals with OpenAI—edged 0.6% lower, paring earlier declines, on Tuesday.
Chip stocks might have been ripe for a pullback in any case: On Monday, the iShares Semiconductor exchange-traded fund snapped a winning streak which had lasted 18 consecutive trading sessions.
“This morning’s moves in individual stocks indicated some profit-taking across semiconductors, which seems reasonable given their incredible run since the end of March,” wrote David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, in a Monday research note.
The move comes just ahead of Big Tech earnings, which are expected to confirm more than $700 billion in capital expenditure this year across the largest U.S. technology companies. Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Meta Platforms will post earnings on Wednesday.
Chip-stock shareholders will be hoping that big capex commitments can bring some cheer back to the sector.