Premarket Movers: Memory Stocks Tumble on Google AI News, While Navan Surges
The opening bell brought a mixed bag of reactions across several sectors, with technology and basic materials stocks facing notable pressure while one travel tech firm celebrated a strong forecast.
Memory Chipmakers Decline Following Google AI Announcement
Shares of major memory chip manufacturers experienced significant sell-offs in premarket trading. The downturn followed Google’s unveiling of a new AI model, which the tech giant stated could substantially reduce the memory requirements for running large language models. This development raised industry-wide concerns about future demand for traditional memory chips.
SanDisk led the declines, dropping nearly 4%. Micron Technology, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology each fell approximately 2%. Adding to the sector’s woes, Qualcomm—a major semiconductor player—slid nearly 2% after Bernstein analysts downgraded the stock to “market perform” from “outperform,” explicitly citing “memory headwinds” as a key industry challenge.
Mining and Steel Stocks Follow Commodity Prices Lower
Precious metal miners tracked the falling prices of gold and silver. First Majestic Silver shed about 5%, while Coeur Mining and Hecla Mining both lost nearly 4%. Larger miners were not spared, with Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan both moving about 3% lower.
Worthington Steel provided a company-specific catalyst, plunging nearly 13% in light trading after reporting fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 27 cents per share. This marked a decline from the 35 cents per share earned in the year-ago period, highlighting sector-specific profitability pressures.
Adobe and Snap Face Headwinds
Adobe saw its stock dip 1.4% after William Blair downgraded the software giant to “market perform” from “outperform.” The analyst firm noted uncertainty about whether Adobe will ultimately be a winner or loser in the generative AI transition, a critical strategic question for the company.
Snap also slipped 1.3% following news that the European Union is investigating Snapchat over allegations it is not doing enough to prevent child
