메모리 칩 주가 급락, Western Digital 16% ·SanDisk 10% 하락에 실적 우려
On Thursday, August 6 Eastern Time, the three major US stock index futures showed mixed premarket trading, with Dow futures rising 0.28% and S&P 500 futures gaining 0.18%, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.38%. The market continued to digest pullback pressures stemming from AI capital expenditure concerns, elevated chip stock valuations, and storage sector earnings reports. Investors also awaited key economic data including initial jobless claims, Q2 nonfarm productivity, and unit labor costs to assess employment trends and inflationary pressures.
Commodity markets showed recovery, with gold rising approximately 0.5% to around $4,268. International oil prices rebounded modestly, with WTI crude gaining 1.12% to roughly $75.90 and Brent crude rising 1.1% to approximately $80.30. Oil price stabilization followed sharp declines in the prior period as the market monitored progress on US-Iran negotiations and the potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Bitcoin fluctuated around $64,600, down 0.1% on the day. Despite weakening Nasdaq futures indicating unstable risk appetite for tech stocks, expectations of easing Middle East tensions and improved ETF inflows helped crypto assets maintain a moderate rebound.
Storage stocks faced collective premarket pressure. Western Digital fell over 16% despite posting fourth-fiscal-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $3.56, exceeding market expectations of $3.31, and revenue of $3.75 billion slightly beating projections. The company's revenue and margin guidance for the next quarter disappointed, failing to meet high expectations for AI-driven storage demand. SanDisk declined over 10%, Seagate Technology fell over 5%, and Micron Technology dropped over 4%.
AMD fell nearly 1% premarket despite reporting second-quarter revenue of $11.5 billion, slightly above expectations, with data center revenue doubling year-over-year to $6.7 billion. Market caution regarding its AI accelerator competitiveness, gross margin guidance, and the performance gap with Nvidia weighed on the stock. Additionally, SpaceX's announcement prioritizing Nvidia chips during its earnings call added downward pressure.
Nvidia rose slightly premarket after Elon Musk expressed support for Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture during SpaceX's earnings call, stating that SpaceX would expand its procurement of Nvidia GPUs. This reinforced market expectations for AI computing orders, though gains remained limited against the backdrop of overall chip sector weakness.
AppLovin fell over 19% premarket. While the company's second-quarter revenue grew 53% year-over-year to $1.92 billion and earnings per share of $3.76 met expectations, revenue slightly missed projections, and third-quarter revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance fell below Wall Street estimates. Management attributed the shortfall to pacing impacts from AI model upgrades, while noting that advertising demand remains strong.
Global semiconductor sentiment weakened significantly, evidenced by South Korea's KOSPI Index declining 4.58%, with SK Hynix down over 10% and Samsung Electronics down over 6%. The Asian chip selloff extended into US premarket trading as memory-related, AI server, and semiconductor equipment stocks faced pressure from high valuations and profit-taking.
The US was scheduled to release initial jobless claims, continuing jobless claims, second-quarter nonfarm productivity, and unit labor costs at 8:30 AM ET, with market expectations for initial claims at 203,000 and second-quarter unit labor costs growth of 2.2% quarter-on-quarter. June wholesale inventories and wholesale sales data were due at 10:00 AM ET.
SpaceX's post-IPO lock-up period expiration drew investor attention as a potential catalyst for share supply dynamics and near-term stock price volatility.