MU, SNDK, NVDA, INTC, TSMC Lead Chip Selloff As Trump Signals Stronger Military Offensive In Iran

• Trump’s comments failed to ease market worries over Strait of Hormuz shipping disruptions and oil volatility.
• Memory chip stocks declined in Thursday's premarket session, with MU and SNDK falling by more than 4%. 
• NVDA and TSMC shares declined about 3%.

Shares of major semiconductor companies declined sharply in early premarket trading on Thursday amid a broader market selloff, after President Donald Trump said that the U.S. forces would hit Iran “extremely hard” in the coming weeks.

Though he said that the U.S. is “getting very close” to ending the Iran war, Trump’s comments did little to reassure markets that tensions would ease, leaving concerns intact over disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and ongoing oil market volatility – even if the war ends within weeks.

Micron and SanDisk led the declines, falling by over 4%. Nvidia declined 2.3%, while peer mega-cap chip stocks Intel and Advanced Micro Devices dropped 2.6% and 2.2%, respectively.

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the contract manufacturer for several U.S. chip designers, dropped 3%.

Chips from American companies, and produced in Asia by TSMC, power the majority of phones, consumer gadgets, cars and other electronic equipment in the world. A disruption in the semiconductor supply chain will have significant second-order effects across industries.

Following Trump’s 19-minute national address on Wednesday evening, markets from Asia to Europe fell. U.S. stock futures slipped, while oil prices spiked to over $106 a barrel.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment remained ‘bearish’ for NVDA and AMD, ‘neutral’ for AMD, and ‘extremely bullish’ for MU. The sentiment for INTC and TSMC turned ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral.’

“Bombing Iran back to the Stone age next few weeks is not what pumptards want to hear? dang, shocked again, not!” remarked a user.

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