FRANKFURT/PARIS/NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – A cut forecast by ASML and negative news from the US put the entire semiconductor sector under pressure on Tuesday. On both sides of the Atlantic, stocks in the sector were among the biggest losers.
ASML suffered the worst. At the bottom of the distant EuroStoxx 50, the shares fell 15.6 percent to 668.10 euros. The annual profit, once significant, is now gone. Given the slump in orders in the last quarter, the supplier to the semiconductor industry is more cautious than before for the coming year. It lowered its sales and gross margin targets, which are now below analysts’ expectations.
The fact that both indicators posted a positive surprise in the third quarter did not help the shares. JPMorgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande’s assessment that the price cut would open up an initial entry opportunity also failed to convince investors. Jefferies expert Janardan Menon was angry at the weakness of the orders. In his opinion, this and the lowered prospect should only indicate a delay in business development. He and Deshpande continue to give positive investment recommendations of “Buy” and “Overweight” and adhere to their price targets of 1,260 and 1,100 euros, respectively, giving ASML clear potential.
The news from the group affected the entire European technology sector – with a price slide of 6.5 percent, it clearly led the list of losers in the industry table. Sector stocks listed in the EuroStoxx 50 such as Internet holding company Prosus, semiconductor company Infineon and software manufacturer SAP lost between 0.8 and 3.2 percent. Infineon’s competitor STMicro and ASML’s industry peer ASM International suffered losses of 3.2 or nearly 14 percent.
Infineon and SAP were also among the losers in Germany’s leading Dax index. In the mid-sized companies MDax, shares of semiconductor wafer manufacturer Siltronic and specialty chemicals group Wacker Chemie lost 3.5 and 2.8 percent respectively. Supplier Aixtron saw its share price fall by 2.7 percent. Among the biggest losers in the SDax small-cap index were semiconductor supplier Süss Microtec and manufacturer Elmos.
US semiconductor stocks were already under pressure before the ASML news. The United States is reportedly considering restrictions on the export of AI-enabled chips to some countries. The news from Europe then strengthened the downward trend.
Stock market heavyweight Nvidia recently fell 4.9 percent in New York – on Monday the shares had just hit a record price thanks to the rekindled AI fantasy. Competitors AMD and Broadcom recently saw price drops of 5.1 and 3.3 percent. A manufacturer of equipment for the semiconductor industry, Applied Materials, fell 9.9 percent. This means that the sector’s stocks were among the weakest stocks in the Nasdaq 100 selection index./gl/he
ISIN DE0006231004 US67066G1040 US0382221051 NL0010273215 DE000WAF3001
AXC0273 2024-10-15/19:57
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