ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ: ASML) shares continue to move lower on Wednesday, adding to steep losses from Tuesday after the chip equipment maker cut its full-year outlook.
What Happened: ASML shares closed Tuesday down 16% after the company lowered its sales outlook due to weak demand for chips outside of AI.
ASML reported third-quarter net sales of 7.5 billion euros ($8.16 billion), beating analyst estimates of 7.12 billion euros, but the Dutch company lowered the high end of its full-year sales guidance from a range of 30 billion euros to 40 billion euros to a new range of 30 billion euros to 35 billion euros.
"While there continue to be strong developments and upside potential in AI, other market segments are taking longer to recover. It now appears the recovery is more gradual than previously expected. This is expected to continue in 2025, which is leading to customer cautiousness," ASML CEO Christopher Fouquet said in the earnings release.
To make matters worse, the company's quarterly results were accidentally published a day ahead of the scheduled release time. On a conference call with investors and analysts Wednesday morning, Fouquet apologized for the mishap and called it "unfortunate, "according to MarketWatch.
The ASML CEO reportedly said on the call that the forecasted weakness in the semiconductor market is expected to mainly impact sales of its less advanced systems in China. He also explained that lower chip demand is primarily coming from the automobile and consumer electronics industries.
"We are still quite optimistic about AI," Fouquet said on the call.
AI chip leader NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) fell more than 4% on Tuesday while other chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ: AMD), Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC) and Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ: MU) all faced significant selling pressure. Nvidia was up more than 2% on Wednesday, Micron was up about 4%, AMD was trading narrowly higher and Intel was down about 1% at the time of writing.
Bloomberg reported this week that the Biden administration was weighing capping sales of advanced AI chips from Nvidia and other U.S. chipmakers. That report also weighed on chip stocks on Tuesday.
ASML Price Action: ASML Holding shares were down 5.86% at $687.61 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.