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Flea stocks crashed on their worst day in almost two months on Thursday, after the market outlook for a few key players turned out to be weaker than expected.
The PHLX Semiconductor Index
SOX, -2.64%
down 2.6% Thursday on track for its worst drop percentage in a day since mid-July, versus a 0.7% decline in the S & P 500 index
SPX, -0.45%
and a 1.3% decline in the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP -1.06%
Flea manufacturing equipment companies were hardest hit after KLA-Tencor Corp.
KLAC, -9.98%
At a Citigroup conference, it was expected that a rebound in chip shipments for the second half of 2018 would probably not be as strong as expected six weeks ago. KLA-Tencor shares fell 9.5% to $ 107.51 in recent deals, while shares of Lam Research Corp.
LRCX, -6.73%
fell 6.5% to $ 160.85 and Applied Materials Inc.
AMAT, -4.91%
shares fell 4.2% to $ 40.71.
The decline comes after the chip equipment sector posted solid results at the end of July and expected weak demand for chips to reach its lowest level in September.
Meanwhile, Micron Technology Inc.
MU, -9.15%
dropped by 8.5% to 45.33 dollars after the company, at the same conference, said that NAND chip prices, or flash memory chips used in USB drives and small devices, had decreased third trimester. Micron's shares are now at 30% of their high of $ 64.66, set in late May.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD, -1.33%
The stock retreated 1.2% to $ 28.16, while the chip maker announced a new Athlon Zen desktop processor, along with Radeon Vega graphics, for PC users.
According to FactSet data, AMD and Micron rank third and fourth among the most traded values, respectively, on the S & P 500 by average daily volume.
Other flea-related stocks fell 3% or more on the day included. Entegris Inc.
ENTG, -7.33%
Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
MRVL, -4.37%
MKS Instruments Inc.
MKSI, -6.86%
Qorvo Inc.
QRVO, -4.99%
and Teradyne Inc.
TER -3.18%
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