SK Hynix falls 10%, SoftBank 7.9% as hot US inflation and Fed hike fears hit AI chip stocks
Asian chipmakers followed Wall Street down on Thursday morning after US September CPI came in at 3.7%. Markets now put the odds of a Fed rate rise on 28 October above 50%.
SK Hynix shares plunged more than 10% in Seoul on Thursday morning as a sell-off in AI hardware stocks spread across Asia, CNBC reported. The trigger was in Washington: US inflation for September came in hotter than expected on Wednesday, and traders now think the Federal Reserve is more likely than not to raise rates again this month.
The biggest falls in Asia on Thursday
| Company | Market | Move |
|---|---|---|
| SK Hynix | Seoul | down more than 10% |
| LG Innotek | Seoul | down 8.1% |
| SoftBank Group | Tokyo | down 7.9% |
| Seoul Semiconductor | Seoul | down 7.7% |
| Samsung Electronics | Seoul | down 7.1% |
| Advantest | Tokyo | down 6.9% |
| Samsung SDI | Seoul | down 6.8% |
| Tokyo Electron | Tokyo | down 5.4% |
| Renesas Electronics | Tokyo | down 5.4% |
Korean chip stocks were already under pressure: earlier this week the KOSPI crashed 5.9% below 6,000.
Wall Street led the way down
On Wednesday the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.88% to 26,692.87 and the S&P 500 lost 1.11% to 7,718.94, while the Dow Jones slipped 0.09%. Tech led the losses after the September consumer price index showed inflation at 3.7% a year, against forecasts of 3.6%, with petrol prices up 9.1%. Our report on the US inflation figures has the details.
According to CME Group's FedWatch tool, cited by Cointelegraph, the odds of a 25 basis point Fed hike on 28 October rose to 53.7%, from 22.1% the day before. The US 10-year Treasury yield touched 5.329%, close to a 24-year high.
Why higher rates hurt AI stocks
Building AI data centres takes enormous amounts of borrowed money, and higher rates make that money more expensive. On Monday the chief executives of Broadcom and Intel warned that financing could become a bigger obstacle to AI growth than chip or power shortages, CNBC said. Not everyone is selling: analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives called rates "a financing question, not a demand question" and said he would only change his view if big cloud companies cut spending or GPU rental prices fell.
Bitcoin and gold
Bitcoin slipped below $82,000 after the inflation figures, and gold fell to $4,079 an ounce before steadying. Our bitcoin price page showed $81,715 at 6:40am PKT, about Rs 2.26 crore a coin at the interbank dollar rate.
What to watch in Pakistan today
Locally, gold in Karachi stood at Rs 430,332 a tola for 24 karat at 6:40am, on our gold rate page, and the KSE-100 closed its last session at 165,417.5 (see the KSE-100 page). The Pakistan Stock Exchange opens at 9:30am PKT, and the question for local investors is whether the global risk-off mood spreads to Karachi. The next US data point is the September producer price index on Friday.
Frequently asked questions
- Why did SK Hynix shares fall on 15 October 2026?
- US consumer inflation for September came in at 3.7%, above forecasts, raising the chance of another Federal Reserve rate rise. Investors worry higher borrowing costs will make AI data centres harder to finance, which hit chipmakers such as SK Hynix (down more than 10%) and Samsung (down 7.1%).
Sources
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