Late-night U.S. stocks: Storage chips plummet, AMD crashes 28%, Chinese concept stocks tumble, gold drops below $4,560, silver plunges 5%

Reporter | Jin Shan Wu Bin

Editor | Jiang Peixia

On March 20, the three major U.S. stock indexes opened lower and continued to decline. As of 22:25 Beijing time, the Dow Jones Index fell by 0.61%, the S&P 500 Index fell by 0.93%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell by 1.27%.

Large tech stocks continued to decline, with Tesla down over 2%, Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook all down over 1%.

Chip stocks saw more declines than gains, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down over 1%. TSMC fell over 2%, ASML and Micron Technology fell over 1%, ARM rose by 5%, and Qualcomm rose by 0.8%. Storage chips collectively plunged, with Western Digital and SanDisk down over 5%.

In addition, Supermicro fell over 28%, hitting a new low since November 2024. According to financial news reports, Supermicro has recently been involved in a smuggling case that violates U.S. export controls.

Regarding Chinese concept stocks, the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell by 1.78%, with popular Chinese concept stocks generally declining. Kingsoft Cloud fell over 11%, Xpeng Motors fell nearly 5%, and Bilibili, Huya, and Baidu Group all fell over 2%.

Gold and silver saw a sharp short-term drop, with spot gold down over 2%, falling below $4,600 to report $4,555 per ounce, and spot silver dropping more than 5% intra-day to report $69 per ounce, completely erasing its gains for the year.

As a traditional safe-haven asset, gold has not demonstrated its safe-haven properties under the gunfire in the Middle East, with this week’s “unexpected” decline shocking investors. The conflict in the Middle East has pushed energy prices higher, raising inflation concerns, leading the market to expect that major central banks will maintain high borrowing costs, causing gold prices to decline for seven consecutive trading days.

Fawad Razaqzada, a senior strategist at Garanti Group, told reporters on the 21st that gold is caught between two opposing forces: geopolitical tensions that typically favor safe-haven assets and a macroeconomic environment dominated by rising yields and a strengthening dollar. Previously, gold managed to withstand these bearish pressures thanks to its impressive resilience. However, the situation has started to deteriorate in recent weeks. Even though geopolitical tensions provided some safe-haven demand, macro factors have largely suppressed this. Gold itself does not generate income and performs better in a low-interest-rate environment. Now, traders no longer expect the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy this year and are even starting to hedge against potential rate hikes.

International oil prices have risen further, with WTI crude oil rising by 1.05% to report $96.552 per barrel; Brent crude oil rose by 1.39% to report $105.221 per barrel.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond rose to 4.36%, the highest level since August.

According to CCTV International News, the U.S. Axios news agency reported today (March 20) citing informed sources that the Trump administration is considering pressuring Iran by occupying or blockading Iran’s Hark Island, forcing it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Several informed sources stated that the relevant plan is still under evaluation and no final decision has been made.

Additionally, according to CCTV news, on the 20th local time, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that its navy and air force conducted a coordinated operation, launching the 68th wave of the “Real Commitment-4” campaign. The announcement stated that this operation utilized “Khoramshahr-4” missiles, “Qader” missiles, and dozens of attack drones to strike 25 targets in Haifa and Tel Aviv, Israel, while also launching attacks on multiple U.S. military bases in the Middle East.