Tech stock selloff in US crashed shares of chip makers in Japan and Korea

US Tech Selloff Triggers Sharp Decline in Japanese and Korean Chip Maker Stocks

Shares of semiconductor manufacturers in Japan and South Korea plunged sharply on Thursday, July 2, 2026, after a broad selloff in US technology stocks soured investor sentiment across Asia — according to Bloomberg.

What Triggered the Selloff

The decline fits into a larger pattern: the US technology sector has demonstrated elevated volatility in recent months amid questions about the return on investment for massive infrastructure spending on artificial intelligence. When major US tech stocks decline on Wall Street, the effect almost always spreads to Asian component suppliers — particularly chip manufacturers and equipment makers whose business is tightly tied to orders from American customers.

In Japan, stocks sensitive to such fluctuations traditionally include semiconductor equipment manufacturers Tokyo Electron, Advantest, Screen Holdings, as well as chip developer Renesas. In South Korea, the key market indicators are Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world's two largest memory chip producers, whose stocks are particularly sensitive to news about demand and memory prices.

Similar sharp swings in Asian chip stocks have occurred before: the market has repeatedly reacted with selloffs to any signal of possible slowdowns in AI infrastructure investment or shifts in the balance of power among suppliers. Each time, this underscored how dependent not only American but also Asian capital markets have become on sentiment surrounding artificial intelligence.

The Apple-China Negotiations Factor

• The selloff occurred on Thursday, July 2, 2026
• Stock of chip makers in Japan and South Korea suffered
• Simultaneously, reports emerged of Apple negotiations with Chinese memory manufacturers ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies
• Investors interpreted this news as a signal of growing competition in the semiconductor market

According to Bloomberg, investor concerns were amplified by reports that Apple is negotiating purchases of memory chips from Chinese ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies. If one of the world's largest memory purchasers begins diversifying suppliers in favor of China, it could mean fewer orders for traditional market leaders — South Korean Samsung and SK Hynix, whom investors have long considered the primary beneficiaries of the AI data center memory demand boom.

What This Means

The episode demonstrates how tightly the semiconductor market is now tied to two factors simultaneously: the AI investment cycle, driving demand for memory chips, and supply chain geopolitics, where the emergence of new Chinese players is changing the balance of power among traditional industry leaders. Any news capable of altering the demand balance between suppliers now translates almost instantly into valuations for chip makers across Asia.