Will Chinese lithography machines also enter the DeepSeek era? Is the US stock market facing selling pressure again?

Last night, the U.S. stock market's chip sector faced another brutal sell-off.

SanDisk fell by 11%, SK Hynix dropped over 7%, and its stock price officially fell below the IPO issue price of $149. Even the usually stable leader Nvidia saw a significant drop of 5%.

This morning, panic spread across the Pacific—Korea's stock market triggered a circuit breaker again. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both plummeted in the Korean market, causing the KOSPI index to sharply decline.

The root of all this points to the same variable: the rise of China's related chip industry is fundamentally shaking the pricing logic of the global memory market.

1. Changxin Tops A-shares, Domestic DUV Equipment Set to be Delivered

Yesterday, Changxin Memory (CXMT) officially listed on the A-share market.

On its first day of trading, its market value directly topped the A-share rankings—this figure alone is enough to shake the global semiconductor industry. It is important to note that for a considerable period, the high-end memory chip (HBM, DRAM, NAND) market has been almost entirely monopolized by Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung. Changxin's rise signifies that this once "ironclad" structure is being torn open.

More crucial news followed: industry insiders reported that the first batch of domestic DUV lithography equipment is planned to be delivered to domestic chip manufacturers such as SMIC, Huahong Semiconductor, and Changxin Memory. Among them, Changxin Memory, as a representative of China's DRAM industry, is expected to become an important application scenario for domestic advanced semiconductor equipment.

It should be clarified that this does not mean China has achieved a technological breakthrough in the EUV or HBM fields. The delivery of domestic DUV equipment is still a long way from truly changing the global lithography machine landscape. However, the market's pricing logic is never equivalent to reality—the market trades on "expectations," not "the current situation."

2. "Scarcity Premium" is Being Undermined

The combination of Changxin's listing and the delivery of domestic equipment is impacting the market not on a technical level, but on a valuation level.

In the past, Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung were able to enjoy extremely high valuation premiums largely due to a core narrative: the supply of global high-end memory chips is controlled by a very small number of manufacturers, and this scarcity gives them strong pricing power. When AI demand surges, they can raise prices at will; when capacity is tight, they can choose their customers.

However, Changxin's rise is undermining this narrative.

Once Changxin secures stable domestic expansion tools, DRAM supply is bound to increase. The impact on Samsung and Hynix is not just about next quarter's profit numbers, but about the long-term premium of "scarcity + pricing power" that supports their market value.

When the market realizes that "monopoly status is no longer eternal," the reconstruction of valuations will happen rapidly.

3. The Fate of U.S. Chip Stocks Begins to Depend on Others

SK Hynix's stock price is showing an interesting characteristic: U.S. stocks fall first, followed by Korean stocks.

This indicates that global capital is reassessing the long-term logic of the memory industry in advance through the U.S. stock market, which has the best liquidity. After Hynix's U.S. stock fell below the $149 issue price, arbitrage pressure and sentiment quickly spread to the Korean domestic market. Coupled with the high weight of Samsung and Hynix in the KOSPI index, the individual stock-level deleveraging has amplified into index-level panic.

This time, the fate of U.S. chip stocks is no longer solely in their own hands.

What the market needs to focus on next is not just whether Hynix can maintain HBM4 orders and cash flow in its July 29 earnings report, but also a deeper variable: whether domestic DUV equipment can be validated by the market to help Changxin achieve substantial expansion, thereby intensifying global memory price competition.

4. Signals of Switching Tracks: Why Are Apple and Google Stabilizing Against the Trend?

While chip stocks are in disarray, another scene emerged in the U.S. stock market last night.

The stock prices of Apple and Google not only did not fall but slightly rebounded. Against the backdrop of a significant drop in the Nasdaq, the resilience of these two giants appears particularly striking.

The underlying reason may lie in their strategies for AI capital expenditure, which are starkly different from those of companies that are frantically building infrastructure.

Apple and Google prefer to lease computing power rather than build large-scale data centers. Although Google's capital expenditure is also high, a significant portion is directed towards self-developed TPU chips (Frozen v2), representing "differentiated investment" rather than "following an arms race"; Apple has remained extremely cautious in AI investments, almost not participating in the competition for training large models, instead focusing on edge AI and device integration.

As the market begins to question the returns of "unrestrained spending," those who spend the least or spend the smartest become a safe haven. This style switch may be an important clue for capital reallocation in the coming period.

5. In Conclusion: Insure Yourself or Switch Tracks

The current market landscape is highly complex. The long-term demand logic for chip stocks (AI-driven) still exists, but the mid-term supply landscape (China's rise) is undergoing structural changes. The intertwining of these two logical lines has dramatically increased the difficulty of directional judgment.

In this environment, there are two relatively rational responses:

First, insure your existing holdings.

The BIT brokerage's options feature is now online. If you hold stocks like SK Hynix, Micron, or SanDisk, you can hedge downside risk by buying put options—if the stock price continues to be pressured by the narrative of Chinese competition, the appreciation of the options can cover the losses of the underlying stocks; if there is a rebound, the maximum loss is only the premium paid for the options.

Second, consider switching tracks.

If you believe that the "scarcity premium" of memory chips has been irreversibly eroded, it may be worth turning your attention to those with more restrained AI investments and more stable valuations—such as Apple and Google. On the BIT platform, you can directly trade these real U.S. stocks listed on Nasdaq and complete your portfolio adjustments in real time.

The fate of chip stocks is shifting from "self-sufficiency" to "watching others' faces." What investors need to do is to appropriately insure themselves.

Risk Warning: Options and U.S. stock trading carry the risk of principal loss. The maximum loss for buying put options is the premium paid, and the option price fluctuates with changes in implied volatility and remaining duration; the prices of U.S. stocks are affected by exchange rates, industry cycles, and individual stock fundamentals, and historical performance does not guarantee future results. The above content is for market observation and product feature introduction only and does not constitute specific investment advice. Please make independent judgments based on your own risk tolerance.