SoftBank shares plunge over 8%, extending selloff into third day

Shares of SoftBank Group plunged over 8% on Friday, marking its third straight day of selloff after the Japanese giant said it had sold its entire stake in U.S. chip giant Nvidia for $5.83 billion. 

SoftBank disclosed in its latest earnings that it offloaded 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October and scaled back its T-Mobile stake, bringing in $9.17 billion.

Although the Nvidia sale surprised some investors, it isn’t the first time SoftBank has exited the U.S. chip giant. Its Vision Fund had accumulated roughly $4 billion worth of Nvidia shares in 2017 before selling out entirely in early 2019.

Even so, SoftBank continues to have business ties to Nvidia. The Tokyo-based company is involved in a number of AI ventures that use Nvidia’s technology, including the $500 billion Stargate project for data centers in the U.S.

Several other tech stocks in the region also declined. Semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest and Tokyo Electron, a chip production equipment maker, fell by over 3% and 4% respectively.

Overnight in the U.S., technology giants came away battered. Nvidia and Broadcom notably declined 3.6% and 4.3%, respectively, while Google parent Alphabet fell 2.8%.