Asian chip stocks fell on Tuesday, with South Korea's KOSPI dropping nearly 10% and triggering a circuit breaker, while Japan's Nikkei fell 4.4%. Nvidia shares slipped 5% after a Wall Street Journal report said the company was in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for an OpenAI data centre; the guarantees would not cover Nvidia chips, and separate discussions included financing for up to $350 billion of AI chip purchases. ASML declined 8.5% following a report from The Information that China had begun producing domestically developed immersion deep ultraviolet lithography machines, a technology long dominated by the Dutch group. CXMT rose to the top of China's stock market valuation on Monday, prompting concerns that the nation's semiconductor industry may become a more significant competitor in AI hardware. Reuters previously reported that Apple had sought U.S. assurances that CXMT would not be added to a trade blacklist. Earnings reports later this week from Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon will clarify hyperscaler spending intentions. Oil prices fell, offering little support to equities, while bond markets remained steady. Market participants estimated a roughly 38% probability of a U.S. interest rate hike this week. Economic data scheduled for release included consumer confidence figures for France and the United States, and upcoming earnings included Mercedes‑Benz, Barclays, Man Group, EssilorLuxottica, Logitech, Rio Tinto, Kering, Ford, Mondelez, Visa, NXP, Seagate, Coca‑Cola, UPS and Boeing.