Investing.com — stock plunged 18.3% today to trade at ¥44,550, hitting its daily limit-down price, as a ferocious wave of selling swept through global semiconductor markets on fears that the AI investment boom may be built on unsustainable financial foundations.
Reports that Nvidia may be backstopping hundreds of billions of dollars in financing for a major AI customer — creating a so-called “circular” funding arrangement — rattled investor confidence in the entire AI supply chain, with memory chipmakers like Kioxia bearing the brunt of the selloff.
The immediate trigger for Kioxia’s collapse was a sharp decline in its U.S. peer SanDisk during the prior American session, which fell more than 11% and dragged sympathy selling directly onto Kioxia shares at the Tokyo open. Compounding the pressure, reports emerged that Chinese state-backed enterprises have begun producing domestic immersion DUV lithography equipment, stoking fears of accelerating competition in the NAND memory market that could erode pricing power and margins for established players like Kioxia.
The broader market context amplified the damage. Japan’s tumbled roughly 4% on the day, at one point shedding more than 3,000 points intraday to reach its lowest level since late May — a roughly two-month low. South Korea’s fared even worse, plunging sharply enough to trigger a 20-minute exchange-wide circuit breaker, with memory giants and each suffering heavy losses. Taiwan’s also fell more than 4%, underscoring the region-wide nature of the rout.
The combination of AI financing concerns, a direct sympathy shock from SanDisk, rising Chinese competitive threats, and a collapsing regional market backdrop converged to make Kioxia the worst-performing stock on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market today, finishing at its daily limit-down level with extraordinary trading volume — a stark reversal for a stock that had reached an all-time high of ¥112,700 just weeks earlier.
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