The world’s largest technology companies took a hit after concerns about tighter US restrictions on chip sales to China led to a sell-off in the sector, triggering a stock market rally.
From the United States to Europe to Asia, chipmakers came under intense pressure. U.S. powerhouses Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom sent a closely watched semiconductor gauge down nearly 7% — the biggest drop since 2020. Across the Atlantic, ASML Holding fell more than 10% even after the Dutch giant reported strong orders. A dive by Tokyo Electron led to losses in the Nikkei 225 stock average.
Wednesday’s action repeated a recent trend in which capitalization-weighted indexes have underperformed the average stock, a reflection of weakness in the mega-caps that dominate them. With companies like Apple and Microsoft each making up 7% of the S&P 500, losses are hard to offset even when most of the index’s members are up — as happened on Wednesday.
