Chip index craters 11.41% as AI fears sink Bitcoin and Nasdaq

Chip stocks got smoked Thursday. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 11.41%, sitting at 9,097.49 by 11:01 a.m. ET, as investors across financial markets hit the brakes on AI infrastructure optimism. Bitcoin slid right along with it, down 5.25% to trade near $75,900 at the same hour.

The damage spread well past chips. The Nasdaq 100 dropped 5.82%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.19% and the S&P 500 gave up 3.47%. Wall Street's fear gauge screamed louder than anything else: the Cboe Volatility Index jumped 56.41% to 25.98.

Some of the biggest names took brutal hits. TSMC's U.S.-listed shares fell 10.47% to $354.32, while SanDisk sank 20.94% and Micron dropped 16.24%. The selloff landed after Democrats won both chambers of Congress on Nov. 3, stoking worry that a Democratic-controlled Congress could slow AI data center development.

Qualcomm added fuel to the fire. The chipmaker guided next-quarter adjusted earnings to $2.15 to $2.35 per share, with a midpoint below the $2.27 analysts were expecting. Its handset-chip revenue slid 26% to $5.14 billion, squeezed as higher memory prices pressured phone demand.

There's more tape to come. The U.S. market's final close will feed straight into Taiwan's trading session on Friday, Nov. 6 — meaning the chip rout may not be done rippling.