Nvidia, Micron Technology and AMD led a sharp sell-off in technology on Tuesday, helping drag the Nasdaq Composite down roughly 2.1% and extending its losses for a second straight session. The move hit a market that had only recently been pressing to fresh highs, and it did so with unusual force in the names that had powered the rally.
For Ines Ferre, who tracked the move during the session, the headline was not just that the Nasdaq fell. It was that the slide centered on chip and AI-linked stocks, with Nvidia slipping more than 4% and Micron tumbling 13% ahead of earnings on Wednesday. Alphabet also fell nearly 1%, while Broadcom and Intel dropped too, showing how quickly the pressure spread beyond one company and into the broader group.
That matters because technology had been the best-performing sector year to date before Tuesday’s decline. Investors had spent recent weeks bidding up AI infrastructure names as major averages reached all-time highs, but last week’s hawkish Federal Reserve signal that inflation remains too high changed the tone. Once rates look harder to cut, lofty valuations in AI companies become easier to question, and the rotation away from recent leaders can turn brutal in a hurry.
The weakness was not confined to the U.S. session. Pers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics also fell in Asia, reinforcing the sense that the pullback in chipmakers was part of a broader reset in the trade rather than a single-company event. Even SpaceX briefly dipped on Tuesday before rebounding after a 16% drop in the prior session, another reminder that the appetite for high-flying names is far less steady than it looked just days ago.
The immediate question now is whether Wednesday’s Micron report steadies the group or adds another layer of pressure. For now, the market is treating the sell-off as a warning that the strongest parts of the technology trade can no longer assume investors will keep paying up without pause.
