Chip sell-off deepens in Asia
Kospi falls about 7%, Samsung and SK Hynix drop more than 8% after Hock Tan’s ‘casino’ remark
Partly confirmed
The takeaway
On Oct 13, 2026 a global slide in semiconductor shares deepened in Asia.
Status
- Claim
Partly confirmed
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 13 October 2026
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Key facts
- Kospi: down about 7% intraday (Bloomberg, via The Edge Malaysia and Livemint); the Seoul exchange briefly halted program trading for the first time since August; the index is down a third from its June record and below its 200-day average
- Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix: each down more than 8%; the FT gave intraday lows of -8.8% and -9.2%, and Micron -4% in the previous US session (Techmeme’s summary of the FT)
- Kioxia: down more than 12%; a gauge of Chinese tech stocks fell 3.6% before paring; TSMC slipped as much as 2%
- Foreign investors sold more than $6.3B of Kospi shares net in October so far
- Second trigger: the South China Morning Post reported on Oct 12 that CXMT plans a new, denser server-memory product by the end of 2026, based on an architecture Samsung and SK Hynix are also developing
- Hock Tan (Singapore, Oct 12): ‘A lot of investors have no clue what they are investing in’; they ‘set very extreme expectations only to find out that it’s almost like they are in a casino’
- Ha SeokKeun (Eugene Asset Management): ‘Uncertainty over whether the upcycle can last into 2028 and beyond appears to be weighing on valuations’
- Context named by Bloomberg: the collapse of Firmus Grid’s planned listing the week before; higher interest rates weighing on debt-funded AI deals; ASML and TSMC report earnings this week
What happened
US chipmakers fell on Monday, Oct 12 after Hock Tan’s remarks in Singapore. On Tuesday the selling moved to Asia and hit Korean memory makers hardest, five days after Samsung reported a record quarterly profit. The Bloomberg report (republished by The Edge Malaysia) names two causes: doubts about how long AI spending can last, and progress by the Chinese memory maker CXMT.
Why it matters
It is the third AI-linked market drop in a week, after the reaction to OpenAI’s lower revenue figure (Oct 8–9) and the withdrawn Firmus listing. The same morning the IMF published a scenario in which an unwinding of AI investment cuts world output by 1.1% by 2028, and noted that calm markets may partly reflect “AI-related exuberance”.
Closing prices were not available when this was written; the figures are intraday. The FT article is paywalled and is cited from Techmeme’s summary.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 3 press
Press
- Financial Times: Chip stocks slide in wake of ‘casino’ comment by Broadcom bossft.com, press
- Bloomberg via The Edge Malaysia: Chip sell-off triggers Korea rout after CEO’s ‘casino’ warningtheedgemalaysia.com, press
- Bloomberg: Korean Chip Stocks Sink on Chinese Rival Worry, Broadcom Remarksbloomberg.com, press
Changes
- Filed (morning; live Techmeme)