Seoul and Taipei Both Fall 3.59% as the AI Chip Selloff Reaches Memory Makers; SK Hynix Drops 5% and Nanya Hits Its Daily Limit
South Korea's KOSPI and Taiwan's Taiex each closed down 3.59% on November 3, Yonhap and CNA reported, after another slide in US chip stocks. Memory makers fell hardest: SK hynix lost 5.03% and Samsung Electronics 4.15%, and Taiwan's Nanya Technology fell the maximum 10%. Analysts quoted by both agencies blamed doubts about returns on AI infrastructure spending, alongside caution before the US midterm vote.
The selloff that started with US chip stocks last week has reached Asia's memory makers, whose record results had been some of the clearest evidence of AI demand. On Tuesday, November 3, South Korea's KOSPI closed down 3.59% at 5,648.79, Yonhap reported, and Taiwan's Taiex also fell 3.59%, losing 1,612.60 points to 43,307.54, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA). CNA said it was the Taiex's seventh-steepest one-day point fall.
Where the losses landed#
In Seoul, SK hynix fell 5.03% and Samsung Electronics 4.15%, Yonhap said, with SK Square, SK hynix's parent, down 5.37% and Samsung Electro-Mechanics down 7.38%. Foreign investors were net sellers of 1.5 trillion won of shares while individuals were net buyers.
In Taipei, TSMC fell 1.50%, which CNA said accounted for about 280 points of the index's drop. Smaller chip names fell further: MediaTek lost 7.43%, ASE Technology 8.61% and memory maker Nanya Technology 10%, the maximum daily decline. A Concord Securities analyst told CNA that the selloff in South Korean memory suppliers "added pressure on their counterparts in Taiwan."
What analysts blamed#
Both agencies tied the fall to the overnight drop on Wall Street, where the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell about 3.4% and the Nasdaq Composite 1.07%, following the 7.2% chip-index plunge on October 30 that we covered in last week's AI selloff, which hit suppliers hardest. "Concerns about profitability of AI investments persist," a Mirae Asset Securities analyst told Yonhap. In Taipei, the Concord analyst said high bond yields could raise the cost of fundraising for large cloud providers and make it harder for them to earn returns.
The fall comes less than a week after SK hynix reported record quarterly revenue above 100 trillion won and said it expects memory demand to exceed supply through 2030. Nothing in Tuesday's reports pointed to a change in the chipmakers' own results; the analysts quoted pointed instead to doubts about whether their customers' AI spending will pay off.
Limits#
- Both agencies also cited caution ahead of the US midterm elections; Yonhap noted that oil refiners fell sharply on lower crude prices. We cannot separate how much of the drop came from AI-spending doubts.
- Japan's market was closed for a holiday, so the regional picture is incomplete.
- Market figures are as reported by Yonhap and CNA at the close; we did not check exchange data directly.