Chip stocks post longest slide since 2008; Nvidia's Huang in Berlin: 'This will pass'

The sell-off in chip stocks deepened at the end of the week, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling on Friday for an eighth straight session, its longest losing streak since 2008, Bloomberg reported. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropped 2.5% to close out its worst week since the tariff turmoil of April 2025, while the S&P 500 lost 1.1%. Over the previous seven sessions, the chip index had shed more than 12% and roughly $2 trillion in market value, according to Asianet Newsable, citing TradingView data.

The losses reflect doubts over whether massive spending on AI data centers will pay off. AI cloud provider CoreWeave was hit hardest, sinking about 12% on Friday and losing roughly a quarter of its value over the week, while its bonds traded at levels that typically signal distress, according to Bloomberg. Higher borrowing costs, with the 10-year Treasury yield rising to 5.09%, added to the pressure.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang brushed off the concerns at an event in Berlin, telling Bloomberg: "All of this is going to pass, and the reason for that is very simple." He said the technology is "going to be transformative" and that the news flow is choppy but "it won't change the fundamentals." Huang is due to deliver the keynote at Nvidia's GTC conference at Berlin's Tempodrom on Wednesday, Oct. 21.