Stocks Sink on Anxiety About Tech and A.I. Spending

Chipmakers led a sell-off in Asia on Friday, which then spread into European and U.S. markets. The immediate catalyst was anxiety over the scale and durability of technology and artificial-intelligence spending, rather than a company-specific earnings disclosure in the headline.

The three names most directly exposed in the story are Nvidia, AMD and TSMC. Nvidia reported $215.9 billion of revenue for its fiscal year ended January 25, 2026, up 65.5% year over year, with 71.1% gross margins and 55.6% net margins. AMD generated $34.6 billion of revenue, up 34.3%, but with materially lower 49.5% gross and 12.5% net margins; TSMC reported $2.9 trillion of revenue, up 33.9%, with 56.1% gross and 40.0% net margins.

Those figures provide a fundamental counterweight to a sentiment-driven sell-off, particularly for Nvidia and TSMC, but they do not resolve the market’s central question: how much future AI spending is already reflected in semiconductor valuations. AMD’s lower profitability makes it more exposed if customers slow or become more selective, while TSMC’s foundry position links it to industry-wide demand rather than a single chip product.

The next setup is likely to hinge on whether the market receives evidence of sustained AI infrastructure orders and resilient margins, or instead sees capex plans, orders or guidance being moderated. Without valuation, consensus, or a quantified size of the decline in the supplied data, the headline supports a two-sided event-driven read rather than a high-conviction directional trade.