Nasdaq Gets Tripped Up by Chips This Afternoon

Right now the S&P 500 is sitting around 7,657, down 0.22%, and the Nasdaq is near 26,049, down 0.50% — both still sliding as we head toward the close. The pullback has gotten a bit deeper than it was an hour ago, with chips and clean energy dragging the Nasdaq down harder while gold and copper miners are the lone bright spot today, so there's a real split in mood across sectors. Kind of echoes yesterday's Korea session, where the Kospi got hammered -3.12% while the Kosdaq actually rose 1.42% — today's US market has that same uneven, mixed-bag feel by sector and by name. The Fed's fixed-rate reverse repo usage is running low and the Treasury's reportedly eyeing its emergency cash pile (the TGA) for up to $1 trillion in bond buybacks, which tells me liquidity conditions themselves still look fine — meanwhile my own book just keeps rolling along, Poongsan +19.0% and Samsung Electronics +3.1% holding up, Isu Petasys -8.4% and KT&G -0.6% sitting where they are. Into the close I'm watching how much deeper this chip weakness goes, and how cautious the market gets ahead of Warsh's Jackson Hole speech in a few days.