November 6 Market Report: Chip Weakness Led by Micron
Big tech held its ground while only the semiconductor sector slipped. On Tuesday (local time), most major U.S. technology stocks stayed flat, but Micron's 0.07% decline made the weakness in the chip sector stand out.
Modest Gains Centered on Big Tech Platform Stocks
The day's trading was sharply split. Platform, consumer, and financial stocks all closed in positive territory, while semiconductor and equipment stocks all stayed in the red. Though the swings themselves were narrow, at 0.01–0.07%, the sector-level direction was consistent.
| Stock | Price | Change | Market Cap | P/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 349.51 | +0.05% | $5.08T | 38.9 |
| Nvidia | 200.13 | -0.03% | $4.83T | 25.3 |
| Microsoft | 555.80 | +0.07% | $4.13T | 29.0 |
| Alphabet (GOOGL) | 288.93 | +0.03% | $3.55T | 15.1 |
| Amazon | 266.03 | +0.06% | $2.88T | 21.5 |
| Meta | 630.00 | +0.01% | $1.61T | 21.5 |
| TSMC | 395.75 | -0.02% | $2.05T | 25.6 |
| Broadcom | 325.48 | -0.02% | $1.55T | 41.6 |
| Micron | 795.23 | -0.07% | $0.90T | 10.7 |
| ASML | 1,496.30 | -0.04% | $0.58T | 36.8 |
Among the largest companies by market cap, Apple held first place at $5.08 trillion, followed by Nvidia at $4.83 trillion. Notably, of the four decliners among the top 10 stocks — Nvidia, TSMC, Broadcom, and Tesla — all are clustered in the semiconductor, AI hardware, and electric vehicle space. By contrast, the gainers — Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta — share a common trait: they are demand-side players pouring trillions of won into AI, in other words, data center investors.
Chip Weakness and the Political Risk Context
The chip-focused selloff was no accident. Bloomberg News reported that Nvidia's stock plunged 9.26% in a single day, and the fortunes of the billionaires included in the index shrank by roughly 248 trillion won. In the domestic market as well, the KOSPI tumbled 4%, prompting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Lee Hyung-il to say that "preemptive measures will be taken to prevent the market from overreacting." Since the Democratic Party swept both chambers of Congress in the U.S. midterm elections, fears of a slowdown in AI data center investment have hit semiconductor stocks especially hard.
Viewed in this context, Micron's 0.07% decline and ASML's 0.04% drop on the day can be seen as aftershocks following the previous session's sharp plunge. Still, the sharply reduced declines suggest the panic selling may be entering a calming phase. It is also worth noting that Micron's P/E of 10.7 is the lowest in the table — a sign that the earnings improvement from the semiconductor boom has yet to be fully priced in, meaning that from a valuation standpoint the chip sector may actually be in a relatively undervalued zone.
What the Valuation Gap Tells Us
The P/E gap between sectors is also stark. Low-P/E names like Alphabet at 15.1, Berkshire Hathaway at 14.6, and JPMorgan at 14.8 closed solidly higher, while Tesla's P/E reached 423.3, Palantir's 120.9, and AMD's 104.4. Even among growth stocks, extremely high-valuation names were bound to lack resilience in this corrective phase.
In fact, Tesla fell 0.03% with its EPS growth deteriorated to -4,709.0%, and ExxonMobil also slipped 0.05% amid weak earnings with EPS growth of -1,454.1%. Conversely, Johnson & Johnson rose 0.04% with EPS growth of 8,887.0%, demonstrating the strength of the biotech and healthcare axis. The sector rotation that market experts summarized after the midterms as "semiconductors and defense wept while biotech and autos smiled" played out exactly among the day's largest-cap names.
Outlook: A Direction Hidden Within Narrow Swings
The sub-1% swings suggest the market is in a transitional phase, probing for its next direction. As SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won noted, "If the market is shaken this much by a single midterm election, the rollercoaster will continue," leaving open the possibility of greater volatility tied to the political calendar.
Even so, two things can be drawn from this trend. First, AI demand itself has not disappeared. The fact that Microsoft and Amazon managed to hold on to small gains shows that market confidence in the fundamentals of the end demand for data centers remains intact. Second, semiconductor valuations have already fallen to low levels. Micron's P/E of 10.7 and Nvidia's 25.3 are relatively modest levels for flagship AI-related stocks. It is hard to rule out a rebound in the chip sector once policy uncertainty clears. As William James said, crisis is a matter of choice, not of stress — and today's market appears to be in a phase of weighing which way to turn, rather than being shaken by the decline.
