China's lithography machines are about to enter the DeepSeek era? Are US stocks facing selling pressure again?

Last night, the US chip sector once again suffered a brutal sell-off.

SanDisk closed down 11%, SK Hynix fell over 7%, with its stock price officially breaking below the IPO price of $149. Even the traditionally steady leader, NVIDIA, also dropped sharply by 5%.

This morning, the panic spread across the Pacific - South Korea's stock market triggered a circuit breaker again. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both plunged heavily on the Korean exchange, dragging the KOSPI index down sharply.

The root cause 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. CXMT Tops A-Share Market, Domestic DUV Equipment Set for Delivery

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

On its first trading day, its market capitalization directly topped the A-share market - a figure sufficient to shake the global semiconductor industry. It is important to note that for a considerable time prior, the high-end memory chip market (HBM, DRAM, NAND) was almost firmly monopolized by Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung. CXMT's ascent means this once 'ironclad' landscape is being cracked open.

More critical news followed closely: According to industry sources, the first batch of domestically produced DUV lithography equipment is planned for delivery to domestic chip manufacturers such as SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and CXMT. Among them, CXMT, as a representative company of China's DRAM industry, is expected to become an important application scenario for advanced domestic semiconductor equipment.

It needs to be clarified that this does not mean China has already achieved a technological breakthrough in EUV or HBM fields. The delivery of domestic DUV equipment still has a long way to go before it truly changes the global lithography machine landscape. However, the market's pricing logic never equates to reality - the market trades on 'expectations', not the 'status quo'.

2. The 'Scarcity Premium' Is Being Dismantled

The combination of CXMT's listing and the delivery of domestic equipment impacts the market not on a technological level, but on a valuation level.

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

But CXMT's rise is dismantling this narrative.

Once CXMT secures stable domestic capacity expansion tools, DRAM supply is bound to increase. What impacts Samsung and Hynix is not their profit figures for the next quarter, but the long-term premium of 'scarcity plus pricing power' that supports their market capitalizations.

When the market realizes that 'the monopoly is no longer eternal', the restructuring of valuations occurs rapidly.

3. The Fate of US Chip Stocks Now Depends on Others

The stock price trend of SK Hynix is showing an interesting characteristic: US stocks fall first, then Korean stocks follow.

This indicates that global capital is using the US stock market, the most liquid pricing window, to reassess the long-term logic of the memory industry in advance. After SK Hynix's US stock broke below the $149 issue price, arbitrage pressure and sentiment contagion quickly spread to the domestic Korean market. Coupled with the overweight of Samsung and Hynix in the KOSPI index, deleveraging at the individual stock level amplified into index-level panic.

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

The market's next focus is not just on whether SK Hynix's July 29 earnings report can secure HBM4 orders and cash flow, but more importantly, on a deeper variable: whether domestic DUV equipment can pass market verification, thereby boosting CXMT's substantive production expansion, and consequently intensifying global memory price competition.

4. A Signal to Switch Sectors: Why Apple and Google Held Steady?

Amidst the wreckage in chip stocks, another picture emerged in the US stock market last night.

The stock prices of Apple and Google not only did not fall but also rebounded slightly. Against the backdrop of the overall Nasdaq plunge, the tenacity of these two giants appears particularly striking.

The underlying reason may lie in their strategies for AI capital expenditure, which are entirely different from those manufacturers frantically building their own infrastructure.

Apple and Google tend to prefer leasing computing power rather than building large-scale proprietary data centers. Although Google's capital expenditure is also high, a large portion is invested in its self-developed TPU chips (Frozen v2), which is 'differentiated investment' rather than a 'follow-the-leader arms race'; Apple, on the other hand, remains extremely cautious in AI spending, barely participating in the large model training competition, instead focusing on on-device AI and device integration.

When the market begins to question the returns on 'unrestrained spending', the players that spend the least, or spend the smartest, become safe havens. This style shift could be a crucial clue for capital reallocation over the coming period.

5. 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 medium-term supply landscape (China's rise) is undergoing structural changes. These two logic lines are intertwined, making directional judgment extremely difficult.

In this environment, there are two relatively rational responses:

First, insure your existing positions.

BIT broker's options function has officially gone live. If you hold shares of chip 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 China competition narrative, the appreciation of the options can offset the losses on the underlying shares; if the stock rebounds, the maximum loss is only the option premium paid.

Second, consider switching sectors.

If you believe the 'scarcity premium' of memory chips has been irreversibly eroded, you might consider shifting your focus to targets that are more measured in their AI spending and have more stable valuations – such as Apple, Google, etc. On the BIT platform, you can directly trade these real US stocks listed on Nasdaq and complete portfolio adjustments in real-time.

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

Risk Disclaimer: Both options and US stock trading carry the risk of principal loss. The maximum loss for buying put options is the premium paid, and option prices fluctuate with implied volatility and remaining time to expiration; option premiums bought after a panic event often already incorporate high volatility premiums. The price of underlying US stocks is affected by exchange rates, industry cycles, and individual company fundamentals; historical performance does not guarantee future results. The above content is solely market observations and product function introductions, not specific investment advice. Please make independent judgments based on your own risk tolerance.