Western Digital Declines in Broad Semiconductor Retreat Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) shares fell 5.4% in premarket trading on Monday to $551, as a sharp selloff across global memory and storage stocks weighed on sentiment despite a broadly positive performance in the wider U.S….
uity market. The decline followed heavy losses in Asian semiconductor stocks, prompting investors to reassess near-term expectations for companies exposed to the AI memory market
SK Hynix Sparks Sector-Wide Weakness The pressure originated in South Korea, where SK Hynix suffered a drop of more than 15%—the largest single-day decline in the company’s history. The move came as investors locked in profits after the stock’s strong rally ahead of last week’s Nasdaq listing. Weakness in Samsung Electronics also contributed to a 9% fall in the KOSPI index, triggering a temporary 20-minute trading halt.
Adding to the negative sentiment, South Korean brokerage KIS published second-quarter earnings estimates for SK Hynix that came in around 8% below market expectations. The weaker forecast reflected slower-than-anticipated HBM4 memory chip shipments and the company’s significant reliance on high-bandwidth memory contracts, limiting its ability to benefit from higher prices in the conventional DRAM market. Memory Stocks Sell Off in Sympathy The disappointing outlook for SK Hynix triggered broad selling across the memory and storage industry.