South Korea's Kospi index declined 10% on July 28 amid heavy selling of chipmaking stocks such as SK Hynix (SKHY) as fears rise of an artificial intelligence (A.I.) bubble.
Trading was temporarily halted on the Kospi as the index fell to its lowest level since April of this year and ended up closing 10.8% lower at 6,023.66.
Shares of chipmaker Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) sank 13% while SK Hynix’s stock dropped 14%.
A day earlier, SK Hynix's U.S.-listed shares fell below their $149 U.S. initial public offering (IPO) price, closing at $143 U.S. a share.
Driving the selling of A.I.-related stocks are worries that rising competition from Chinese A.I. startups and chipmakers might undermine U.S. companies.
A 466% jump in the price of Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT (SHA: 688825) in its trading debut on the Shanghai exchange heightened the concerns.
Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 4% to 62,364.92 on the day. The Shanghai Composite index lost 1.2% to close at 3,813.31.
Taiwan’s Taiex declined 5%, with shares of leading chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) dropping 3%.
In the U.S., shares of several major chipmaking stocks fell on July 27, pulling the Nasdaq Composite (NDAQ) index lower.
Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) sank 5.2%, while Nvidia (NVDA) fell 5% and Micron Technology (MU) lost 2.3%.
Investors and analysts are growing increasingly worried about the amount of money leading U.S. technology companies are spending on A.I.
