Wall Street Today: DJIA, S&P 500, Nasdaq Comp Fall as SKHY, MU, GOOGL, TSM Lead Tech Selloff

The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Dow-30 all fell Thursday as weakness for SK Hynix, Micron, Alphabet, Taiwan Semiconductor at other tech giants put the market in a risk-off mood.

The $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ fell 387.28 points (1.5%) to a 25,881.95 close, while the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ shed 38.63 ticks (0.5%) to 7,533.7 and the $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ gave back 105.67 points (0.2%) to 52,552.97.

Macro

The key indexes fell in part on an 13.7% decline for South Korean semiconductor giant $SK hynix (SKHY.US)$, which has been swinging wildly since listing on the Nasdaq last Friday.

SK Hynix pulled back Thursday after soaring 27.3% on Wednesday.

Adding to the market's negative tone, semiconductor darling $Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$ fell 2.3% as markets ignored its better-than-expected Q2 results and focused instead on management guiding for higher capital expenditures.

SK Hynix and Taiwan Semi's declines sparked a broad selloff for chip- and artificial-intelligence-related stocks.

Major decliners included $NEBIUS (NBIS.US)$ (off 13.9%), $Bloom Energy (BE.US)$ (13.6% lower), $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$ (12.6% weaker) and $Western Digital (WDC.US)$ and $Corning (GLW.US)$ (which both lost 9.2%).

Tech stocks to fall by smaller percentages included $Marvell Technology (MRVL.US)$ (8.7% lower), $Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI.US)$ (off 8.1%), $Nokia Oyj (NOK.US)$ (7.7% weaker), $Lumentum (LITE.US)$ (down 6.1%), $Intel (INTC.US)$(which shed 5.8%), $Micron Technology (MU.US)$ (which gave back 5.7%), $Arm Holdings (ARM.US)$ (5.4% softer), $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ (5.3% lower) and $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ (down 4.4%).

In economic news, two Federal Reserve members spoke of U.S. inflation risks outweighing labor problems – boosting speculation that the Fed's next move will be to raise rates rather than lower them.

Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid said in a speech that U.S. economic risks remain tilted toward inflation more than toward the job market.

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan went further, saying bluntly in a separate appearance that "I currently believe modestly higher interest rates would better balance the outlook and risks."

As if to emphasize the two Fed members' points, the Labor Department reported before the bell that weekly initial jobless claims fell by 8,000 to 208,000 in the week ended July 11 – below the 220,000 that economists had expected.

The Fed traditionally raises rates to combat excess inflation, but lowers them to fight job-market weakness.

Equity investors typically prefer lower rates, which can make stock returns relatively more attractive than bond or money-market yields.

Elsewhere in markets, cryptocurrencies fell in apparent profit-taking following some recent gains, coupled with a risk-off mood sparked by U.S. tech stocks' declines and continued U.S.-Iran military action.

$Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ eased 1.2% to $64,124.35 as of about 3:30 p.m. New York time, while $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ shed 2.8% to $1,870.27,$Solana (SOL.CC)$lost 2.1% to $75.59 and $Ripple (XRP.CC)$gave up 1.6% to $1.09.

Moo-vers

The "Magnificent Seven" followed the broader market's lead and ended Thursday mostly lower.

$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ led the Mag-7 decliners with its previously noted 4.4 decline, followed by $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ (2.5% lower), $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ (off 2.4%), $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ (off 2%) and $Tesla (TSLA.US)$(0.9% weaker).

Only $Apple (AAPL.US)$(up 1.8%) and $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ (1.4% firmer) managed to gain ground.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Thursday's noteworthy percentage gainers included:

-- $IBM Corp (IBM.US)$, up 3.7%. Big Blue bounced after falling 27.2% over Monday and Tuesday after the company warned that Q2 results will come in below analyst expectations.

-- $PayPal (PYPL.US)$, up 2.2% to $56.73. The payments firm rose for a second day following reports that privately held Stripe is leading a $60.50-a-share takeover bid for the company.

Conversely, Thursday's major percentage losers included:

-- Select space stocks led by $AST SpaceMobile (ASTS.US)$, which shed 18.3%. ASTS tumbled after announcing plans after the bell Wednesday to sell $1 billion of convertible preferred notes, which will presumably dilute existing shareholders. $Rocket Lab (RKLB.US)$ likewise sank 11.6% to $67.35 partly in sympathy, and partly after Piper Sandler initialed coverage with a "Neutral" rating and an $83 price target. Meanwhile trillionaire Elon Musk's $SpaceX (SPCX.US)$ fell another 3.1% to $131.11, its lowest close since going public on June 12 at $135 a share.

-- $Circle (CRCL.US)$, down 6.1%. The stablecoin firm gave back all of a 3.9% gain it enjoyed on Wednesday on word that mega-investor Cathie Wood's Ark Invest had bought an additional $13.9 million of the stock.

-- Certain cryptocurrency-related stocks, which fell in part on cryptos' Thursday declines. Losers included $Robinhood (HOOD.US)$ (off 8.2%), $Coinbase (COIN.US)$ (4% lower), $Strategy (MSTR.US)$ (3.5% weaker) and $Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR.US)$ (down 2.2%).

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