Chips — the washout hits 7%, Asia refuses to follow, and oil funds close at 52-week highs
Thursday took Wednesday's after-hours verdict and wrote it across the whole tape. The chip ETFs fell six to seven percent — SOXX −6.8%, SMH −6.0% — with the equipment and optics names worst: Lam Research −11.8%, Coherent −12.5%, Lumentum −11.5%, Fabrinet −10.8%, Applied Materials −8.2%, ASML −6.9%. Meta, the one print the market had paid on Wednesday night, gave the whole gain back and more, closing 7.0% lower. The Nasdaq 100 lost 2.9%, the S&P 500 1.2%, and the VIX jumped 14% to 19.
Thursday sold the AI trade from the top of the ladder down — and bought it at the bottom. The companies that build the hardware fell hardest: chip ETFs lost 6–7%, Lam Research 11.8%, the optics makers 11–13%. The spenders followed: Meta −7%, Amazon −4.6%, Nvidia −4.4%. One rung lower, the companies that rent out AI capacity lost about half as much.