What happened: Semiconductor stocks fell in early trading on Monday, with the PHLX Semiconductor Index declining 2% as fears of increased competition from China spread across the sector.
US-listed shares of memory and storage leaders Micron Technology (MU) and SK Hynix (SKHY) tumbled around 4%
AI chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA) stock dropped 1%. Peer AMD (AMD) fell more than 2%. Chip maker Intel (INTC), along with Marvell (MRVL) and Qualcomm (QCOM), also slid.
Among the semiconductor equipment makers, ASML (ASML), Applied Materials (AMAT), and Lam Research (LRCX) dropped. What’s behind the move: The move in semiconductors came after China’s Alibaba (BABA) unveiled its most powerful AI model yet, Qwen3.8-Max. Meanwhile, a research firm noted that China-based AI developer DeepSeek’s latest model is more than 100 times cheaper than Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.