Wall Street kicked off the second half of 2026 with a sharp rotation out of semiconductor and hardware names, while software and select crypto-exposed equities surged. Over back-to-back sessions, chipmakers and memory stocks suffered some of their largest single-day losses of the year, while enterprise software and Bitcoin proxies rallied.
The sell-off began Wednesday, when Micron Technology fell more than 3% in premarket trading, eventually sliding 10.6% by Thursday. Intel, Nvidia and Marvell Technology also dropped, with Advanced Micro Devices retreating 1.5% on Wednesday and another 2% on Thursday, pulling away from the trillion-dollar market cap it had briefly touched. The pain spread to memory and storage on Thursday, with Sandisk plunging over 10% on Wednesday and extending declines, Western Digital down over 6%, and Seagate Technology also lower. Even adjacent hardware names Corning and Dell Technologies fell over 2%.
In contrast, software stocks outperformed decisively. ServiceNow jumped 5% on Wednesday and continued higher Thursday, while Salesforce gained 3.4% and Oracle added 1.7%. Adobe joined the rally, signaling a persistent rotation into software. Palantir Technologies was another standout, rising 7.8% on Wednesday and over 3% on Thursday after detailing a strategic AI partnership with Nvidia targeting the U.S. government.
Crypto markets lent support to digital-asset proxies. Higher cryptocurrency prices drove Strategy (the largest corporate Bitcoin holder) up more than 5%. Coinbase Global gained 3%, while Robinhood Markets rose 2.6%, reflecting the broader uptick in crypto sentiment.
Other notable movers included Bloom Energy, which surged 8% after expanding its partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to a $25 billion commitment for AI power projects, and National Beverage, which jumped 6% on a special dividend. On the downside, Alcoa fell 4% after a $4.1 billion asset acquisition from South32, Nike slipped 3% despite an earnings beat, and Embraer dropped 5% after closing its buyout of a joint venture stake. Markets remained cautious ahead of the June jobs report and amid indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Doha.
