Changes in US stocks | Storage sector continues to decline Western Digital (WDC.US) falls more than 6%

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on Tuesday, the storage sector continued its decline, with Western Digital (WDC.US) and Seagate (STX.US) falling more than 6%, while Micron Technology (MU.US), SanDisk (SNDK.US), and SK Hynix (SKHY.US) fell more than 5%. According to the news, over the weekend, Dr. Cao Kanyu, President of Changxin Storage, announced at an industry event that the company has made key progress in the next-generation 4F² storage unit architecture and plans to launch DDR5 server memory products based on this architecture by the end of 2026. This news has suddenly heated up concerns about Chinese manufacturers speeding up their penetration into the high-end memory chip market. The sell-off logic of the market is clear: if Chinese manufacturers can enter the high-end memory chip market previously dominated by US and South Korean companies at a lower cost and on a larger scale, the profit margins of related companies will face substantial compression.

Some analysts pointed out that the core driving force of this round of sell-off is the market's deep questioning of the return on AI investment. As the US earnings season is about to begin, investors' confidence has clearly shaken as to whether tech companies' huge AI expenses can be converted into sufficient returns in an environment of high borrowing costs. Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, wrote in the report, “Pessimistic market sentiment is rare recently. The buyer withdrew and waited, and the seller successfully lowered the price with little resistance. The empty side of AI trading currently dominates.”