Stock market today: Nasdaq dives, S&P 500 and Dow fall as Amazon, Intel earnings fuel tech rout

Intel (INTC) stock is getting torched in premarket trading on Friday, falling 26%, after the company warned of sluggish PC sales in the current quarter. At the core of that warning is consumer resistance to the higher PC prices stemming from the memory chip shortage.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan sees more challenging quarters ahead due to memory chip dynamics.

“Our customers began signaling a PC slowdown based on the memory prices and availability,” Tan said. “Year-to-date system endpoint prices have increased significantly, placing additional pressure on already limited IT budgets. The pace of this PC correction has accelerated over the last two months as our OEM partners are aggressively managing inventory to match the softer sell-through.”

On the other hand, hop onto the earnings call late Thursday from memory chipmaker Sandisk (SNDK), and you would’ve heard that there is no memory chip shortage at all. Or, at the very least, things stand to improve nicely in the months ahead.

“We think our internal models are every segment in the NAND market,” Sandisk CEO David Goeckeler said. “PCs, smartphones, data center will all show positive growth next year because content per device continues to go up as part of that is mixing to premium.”

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