Washington: Shares of US memory maker Micron have lost more than $70 billion in market value since Friday's close, a 15 percent drop, amid a widespread sell-off on Wall Street, according to the Financial Times.
SanDisk, the flash memory maker that was the best-performing stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 last year, lost about $15 billion in value during the week, while data storage companies Western Digital and Seagate each lost billions of dollars.
"These stocks have seen tremendous gains, so it makes sense that even minor news would affect their shares," said Travis Prentice, chief investment officer at Informed Momentum, a California-based asset management firm.
He added that the recovery in memory company stocks "does not appear to be over yet, but expectations are high, so it makes sense to take some profits, especially in a turbulent market environment."
Investors bet that the shortage of memory chips, essential components in data centers that run advanced artificial intelligence models, would continue until next year.
This shortage has made memory chip and storage suppliers the biggest beneficiaries of artificial intelligence on Wall Street this year, while major technology companies, such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet, have fallen behind due to concerns about excessive capital spending.