Why Qualcomm Stock Crashed 15% on Thursday - The Real Story Behind the Plunge

Qualcomm investors got a brutal wake-up call Thursday as shares nosedived in heavy trading. The semiconductor giant's sudden collapse left Wall Street scrambling for answers—and exposed deeper vulnerabilities in the traditional tech sector.

The Perfect Storm Hits Chip Stocks

Multiple catalysts converged to hammer Qualcomm's valuation. Weak smartphone demand projections combined with supply chain concerns created a toxic mix for investors. The company's exposure to China's volatile market didn't help matters either.

Analysts Slash Targets Amid Sector Rotation

Wall Street firms raced to downgrade price targets as institutional money fled semiconductor stocks. The selloff revealed how quickly traditional tech valuations can unravel when sentiment shifts—something crypto natives understand all too well.

When Legacy Tech Shows Its Age

Qualcomm's stumble highlights the fragility of centralized tech giants in today's decentralized landscape. While blockchain networks operate 24/7 with transparent on-chain metrics, traditional stocks remain vulnerable to old-school market manipulations and quarterly reporting cycles.

The takeaway? Thursday's bloodbath serves as another reminder that centralized tech stocks move like dinosaurs—while crypto assets evolve at internet speed. Sometimes the market cuts through the noise and tells you exactly what it thinks about yesterday's technology.

The summit concludes

The summit concluded on Thursday, with Qualcomm's major development being the unveiling of those chips, the Snapdragon X2 line. This is the second generation of the X series launched to great fanfare last year, not least because it plunged the company directly into the PC market.

Image source: Getty Images.

In taking the wraps off the X2, Qualcomm said that the processors are far quicker and notably more efficient than competing products. They're also engineered for high performance with gaming and creative applications, both of which are important market niches.

However, investors might feel that the PC segment doesn't have great growth potential. It's also dominated by established chipmakers.

One person who was likely unimpressed with the new hardware is Aletheia Capital's Angus Lin. Before market open Thursday, he downgraded his recommendation on Qualcomm from a buy to a hold.

A notable underperformer, the analyst says

In Lin's view, the company has been one of the more uninspiring major chipmakers so far in 2025, not least because it faces losing several key businesses with heavyweight clients in its foundational mobile segment, such asand.

Meanwhile, a rise in the costs of wafers -- a crucial input for processors -- will hurt the company's fundamentals.

In his analysis, Lin wrote that "We like [Qualcomm's] auto and internet-of-things growth story, but we estimate these are not enough to MOVE up the company within our forecast horizon."