Selling spread across semiconductor stocks on July 7 as assessments emerged that Samsung Electronics' results failed to meet Wall Street's high expectations for artificial intelligence demand.

CNBC reported Samsung Electronics shares fell 8 percent even though quarterly net profit was expected to top both Nvidia and Apple, and operating profit was expected to jump 1,800 percent.

Investors judged that beating earnings alone was not enough to satisfy lofty expectations for AI-related stocks, CNBC reported. The pattern has been repeated on Wall Street in recent weeks. Nvidia, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks also saw their shares weaken after earnings releases.

The decline was also seen as coinciding with scaled-back expectations for the memory sector. Memory chip shares have risen sharply this year on supply shortages and sustained AI demand, and companies have strengthened their pricing power. Micron and SanDisk shares are up more than 220 percent and more than 570 percent this year, respectively.

Against that backdrop, investors are concerned about whether AI spending can keep absorbing surging memory prices. With memory costs rising, Apple and Microsoft are raising prices for consumer products to offset the burden.

U.S. chip stocks also fell. SanDisk slid about 8 percent and Micron fell about 5 percent, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF dropped about 5 percent. Intel and Applied Materials fell about 8 percent each, Lam Research dropped 7 percent and AMD fell about 5 percent. Reports that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is developing its own chips to avoid U.S. export restrictions and reduce reliance on Nvidia also weighed on investor sentiment, CNBC reported.