close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

Asia tech stocks fall amid broad declines in region after Nvidia results
news

Asia tech stocks fall amid broad declines in region after Nvidia results

Nvidia has for the first time given permission to use Samsung Electronics’ fourth-generation high bandwidth memory chips, or HBM3 chips, in its processors, three people familiar with the matter said.

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares in Asia’s technology and chip sectors fell on Thursday after US chip giant Nvidia reported second-quarter results last night, amid a broader decline in the region’s major markets.

Losses were biggest at companies with direct ties to the US tech giant, such as South Korean chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.

SK Hynix, which makes high-bandwidth memory chips – used in AI applications – for Nvidia, saw shares fall as much as 6.74%.

Samsung Electronics, the highest weighted stock on South Korea’s benchmark stock index, Kospi, even fell by 3.8%.

While the extent of Samsung’s supply relationship with Nvidia isn’t fully known, the company is expected to produce HBM chips for some Nvidia products, Reuters reported.

Other direct suppliers of Nvidia such as Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer And Hon Hai Precision Industry — known internationally as Foxconn — suffered losses of 2.8% and 2.96% respectively.

Stock chart iconStock chart icon

hide content

The spillover also extended to other tech stocks, although to a lesser extent. Japanese semiconductor-related stocks such as reindeer, Advantage And Tokyo Electron decreased by 3.2%, 3.6% and 3.49% respectively.

In addition, Chinese chipmakers listed in Hong Kong fell, despite being largely separate from Nvidia’s value chain. SMIC, which is partly state-owned, lost about 1.4%, while Hua Hong Semiconductor fell 1.66%.

Runaway train slows down

While Nvidia beat quarterly revenue and earnings per share estimates, the stock’s decline may have been driven by fears that the company may not be able to achieve explosive growth in the current quarter, Luke Rahbari, CEO of Equity Armor Investments, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

Rahbari said the results are “really good,” but also noted that “Nvidia has exceeded analyst expectations for so many quarters … People might think the runaway train is slowing down a little bit.”

He remains optimistic about the company, stressing that “no company in the world, in my opinion, has such a dominant position in the industry as Nvidia.”

However, Nvidia’s gross margin fell to 75.1% from 78.4% in the prior period, while its expected annual gross margin of “mid-70s” was lower than analysts’ estimate of 76.4%, StreetAccount said.

Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” Mark Lushcini, chief investment strategist at financial advisory firm Janney Montgomery Scott, called the drop in Nvidia shares a “rounding error,” referring to how much Nvidia has risen this year. On a year-to-date basis, the shares are up about 150%.

He noted: “The company is growing fast, but the pace of growth has been slowing for 4 quarters now. For a company trading on 40-50 times expected earnings, that’s a high demand hurdle to overcome relative to expectations.”

Stock chart iconStock chart icon

hide content