NEW YORK, Jan 8, 2026, 10:51 (EST) — Regular session
- Broadcom shares were down about 3% in morning trading, underperforming a weaker chip sector.
- A report on Nvidia tightening China payment terms put renewed focus on AI hardware’s China exposure.
- Investors are also positioning ahead of Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payrolls report.
Broadcom Inc shares fell 3.1% in morning trade on Thursday, tracking a dip across chip and AI names after Reuters reported Nvidia is demanding full upfront payment for its H200 chips in China.
Broadcom was down $10.65 at $332.85 by 10:35 a.m. EST, near the session’s low of $332.15. Nvidia chief Jensen Huang said customer demand was “quite high”, but the report said some Chinese firms were asked to pause orders as regulators weigh approvals. Reuters
The move matters now because Broadcom sits on the same trade: data-center plumbing, custom processors and networking silicon that ride hyperscaler spending and, increasingly, China headlines. Investors came into 2026 ready to “buy tech and forget about it,” Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of Longbow Asset Management, said on Wednesday. Reuters
Wall Street opened slightly lower as investors turned cautious before Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report — the U.S. government’s monthly tally of jobs and pay that can swing rate-cut bets. The Dow fell about 0.3% at the open, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq slipped around 0.1%.
Chipmakers were broadly lower: Nvidia fell about 1.5%, AMD lost 1.7% and Intel slid 2.9%, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF was down 2.1%.
Broadcom has been treated as an AI bellwether since its December results, when it pointed to a $73 billion AI backlog it expects to ship over 18 months and warned a higher mix of AI revenue would pressure gross margin, a key profitability measure. CFO Kirsten Spears said gross margin would dip about 100 basis points — one percentage point — sequentially.
But chip stocks have been quick to punish any hint that the AI build-out is meeting friction, especially when it touches China. A longer pause in approvals — or tougher domestic-content rules — could temper hardware orders and revive worries that returns on AI spending may take longer to show up.
Broadcom said on its last earnings call that it plans to report fiscal first-quarter results after the close on March 4. Between now and the Jan. 9 payrolls report, traders will keep watching bond yields and any fresh signal from Beijing on high-end AI chips.
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