Chip makers just reminded the market how quickly sentiment in tech can turn. The latest compression method from Google researchers, which could sharply cut the memory needed for AI tasks, helped trigger a broad selloff in big semiconductor names and pulled the Nasdaq to fresh multi-month lows.
That slide came on top of mounting worries about the Iran war, with surging oil prices, higher bond yields, and fears of a deeper economic hit. Now one major tech sector fund built around large U.S. names is down for the year. Oppenheimer recently described this as a historic phase of relative weakness for the large-cap tech ETF in nearly 50 years. They note that the pressure really began after the initial DeepSeek-driven selloff and then intensified as Iran-related war concerns grew.
