U.S. Stocks Fall as SpaceX Drops 3.9%, While SK Hynix Jumps 4.7%

Key Takeaways

• All three major U.S. indices closed lower, led by a 0.60% decline in the Nasdaq Composite as large-cap technology stocks came under pressure.
• SpaceX fell 3.93% to $133.29, while SK Hynix rallied 4.70% and led a broad advance among memory-related shares.
• CoreWeave jumped 16% after hours following 112% revenue growth and a $104 billion backlog, while Lumentum reported strong underlying AI-driven demand.

Wall Street Retreats as Large-Cap Technology Shares Weaken

The pullback was broad enough to push the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 into negative territory, but the selling remained concentrated in several large technology names. Google shares fell nearly 4%, recording their steepest one-day percentage decline in almost six months, while SpaceX dropped 3.93% to close at $133.29.

The weakness in major technology stocks contrasted with firmer trading across parts of the semiconductor market. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 0.87%, indicating that investors were still willing to buy selected companies with exposure to AI infrastructure, data storage and memory demand even as the wider market moved lower.

SK Hynix Leads Memory Stocks Higher

Memory stocks were among the strongest performers of the day. SK Hynix gained 4.70%, SanDisk rose 2.68%, Seagate Technology advanced 2.44%, and Micron Technology added 0.87%. Their gains helped the semiconductor sector outperform despite losses across the major U.S. indices.

SK Hynix received additional attention after plans emerged to increase NAND production capacity at its Dalian facility in China by 50%. Solidigm, the company’s subsidiary, has resumed construction of a second factory that had been suspended for four years. Equipment installation could begin as early as November 2026, with mass production targeted for the first half of 2027.

The expansion is expected to add approximately 50,000 wafers of monthly capacity. Production in Dalian will focus mainly on mature 100-layer NAND using a floating-gate structure, while more advanced, higher-layer NAND will remain concentrated at the Cheongju facility in South Korea.

NVIDIA Clarifies Its AI Financing Exposure

NVIDIA sought to reduce concerns surrounding its role in a proposed $500 billion AI infrastructure financing programme. Chief executive Jensen Huang said the company’s support would not exceed 25% of any individual project and described NVIDIA as a supplementary participant rather than the dominant source of funding.

The clarification helped ease fears that NVIDIA could take on an excessive concentration of financing risk as AI infrastructure investment expands. NVIDIA’s bond spreads and credit default swap prices narrowed after the comments, signalling that credit markets viewed the company’s potential exposure as more limited than initially feared.

CoreWeave and Lumentum Show Continued AI Demand

CoreWeave shares surged 16% in after-hours trading after the AI infrastructure provider reported second-quarter revenue of $2.575 billion. Revenue increased 112% from a year earlier and narrowly exceeded the $2.56 billion market forecast.

The company’s backlog rose to approximately $104 billion from $99.4 billion at the end of the first quarter, providing greater visibility into future demand. CoreWeave also said the expected profit margin on contracts signed during the second quarter was 510 basis points higher than in recent quarters.

For the full year, the company projected revenue of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion and capital expenditure of $35 billion to $39 billion. The figures highlight both the rapid growth of AI computing demand and the substantial investment required to build the infrastructure needed to meet it.

Lumentum also delivered strong underlying results as demand for AI optical communications accelerated. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue rose 109% year over year, while non-GAAP earnings per share increased 267% to $3.23. Revenue from both the components and systems businesses doubled, gross margin edged above 50%, and non-GAAP net income increased 415%.

The company nevertheless reported a GAAP net loss of $7.2 billion, or $84.65 per share, largely because of a one-off, non-cash debt settlement charge of $7.8 billion. The accounting loss initially complicated the market reaction, sending the stock through sharp swings in after-hours trading.

Lumentum’s first-quarter outlook remained strong. The midpoint of its revenue guidance implied growth of 135% from a year earlier, around eight percentage points above expectations, while the midpoint of its earnings forecast implied a 282% increase, about 16 percentage points ahead of forecasts.

SpaceXAI Launches Grok Bot as SpaceX Shares Decline

SpaceXAI introduced Grok Bot, a product designed to compete in the enterprise AI agent market. The platform is presented as a team of collaborative agents that can access applications and websites, retain previous task information, and share context to maintain continuity across workflows.

Potential use cases include sales, finance, engineering, growth and marketing. During internal trials, sales teams used the system to screen prospective customers and prepare draft emails overnight, while finance teams used it to retrieve reimbursement documents from email inboxes.

The launch expands SpaceXAI’s enterprise ambitions, but it did not prevent SpaceX shares from falling 3.93% during a weaker session for large-cap technology stocks. The decline left the stock at $133.29, making it one of the day’s more closely watched technology movers.

Conclusion

The August 11 session highlighted a selective market rather than a broad retreat from growth assets. Large-cap technology weakness pulled the main U.S. indices lower, but SK Hynix and other memory stocks gained as investors responded to capacity plans and continued AI-related demand.

CoreWeave and Lumentum reinforced the strength of AI infrastructure spending, although their results also underlined the heavy capital and financing requirements behind that growth. The next market focus is likely to remain on large-cap technology stability, AI project financing, memory supply developments and whether sector-level strength can broaden into the major indices.