Asian chipmaking stocks on edge before Nvidia Q4 earnings test

Investing.com-- Most major Asian chipmaking stocks moved in a flat-to-low range on Wednesday, tracking overnight declines in NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) as markets awaited more cues on an AI-driven boom from the chipmaker’s fourth-quarter earnings. 

Nvidia wiped out about $100 billion in market capital on Tuesday, also seeing a measure of profit-taking as investors waited to see whether a massive earnings spike materialized as forecast by the chipmaker. The earnings will also potentially justify Nvidia’s sharp run-up in valuation over the past year. 

Nvidia will report its fourth quarter earnings after the U.S. market close on Wednesday, and is expected to clock EPS of $4.58 on a revenue of $20.37 billion.

Anticipation of the earnings saw most Asian chipmaking stocks turn skittish on Wednesday. Japanese semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest Corp. (TYO:6857) and TSMC (TW:2330) (NYSE:TSM)- the world’s largest contract chipmaker- fell 3.2% and 1%, respectively. Both firms are major suppliers to Nvidia, with Morgan Stanley analysts stating in a recent note that TSMC's shares could be used to take a position in Nvidia for its quarterly earnings.

South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix Inc (KS:000660)- which is also poised to benefit from a boom in artificial intelligence development- rose 0.5% after briefly touching a record high this week, while its larger peer Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:005930) fell 0.1%. 

Japanese tech investment house SoftBank Group Corp. (TYO:9984) fell 2%, tracking an over 5% drop in the shares of its British chip designing unit Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM), which had recently also seen a massive valuation spike on the back of AI hype.

Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TYO:8035), Japan's most valuable chipmaker, fell 1.3%.

Hype over AI drove strong gains in global tech stocks in recent months, as investors bet that chipmakers and chip-adjacent firms will see higher demand on the back of increased development in generative AI. 

Nvidia has been at the heart of this boom, given that it makes processors specifically geared towards running generative AI programs.

Most Asian chip stocks have largely tracked gains in Nvidia after its earnings, which have blown past expectations for three of the four quarters so far in 2023. 

Elsewhere, China’s SMIC (HK:0981)- the country’s biggest chipmaker- surged 4.6% in Hong Kong trade on Wednesday, after a report showed the chipmaker was among the biggest recipients of government funding in 2024.