New York, Feb 23, 2026, 16:01 ET — After-hours.
Applied Materials (AMAT) slipped 1.1% to finish at $371.12 on Monday, backing off recent highs as chip stocks lost steam late in the session.
Wall Street saw a risk-off turn as investors weighed mixed U.S. trade messages in the wake of a Supreme Court decision on President Donald Trump’s tariffs, plus talk of additional duties in the mix. “Obviously, the extra layer of uncertainty that comes from the Supreme Court ruling and what trade policy looks like now isn’t helping,” said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategy analyst at Baird. Reuters
Semiconductor stocks stayed mostly in step with the broader market, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slipping 1.4% for the day. The gauge remains a key barometer for chip-company performance.
Applied landed in the spotlight after an insider filing surfaced. Director Judy Bruner submitted a Form 144, signaling a potential sale of 3,969 shares valued at roughly $1.50 million, the document shows. This filing is just a notice—it’s required when an insider plans to sell, but doesn’t confirm a sale has happened yet.
Shares have moved in step with investor bets on the next wave of chip capex, especially gear tied to advanced packaging and AI server memory. Earlier this month, Applied put out a quarterly sales outlook that topped forecasts. CEO Gary Dickerson told investors DRAM—mainstream memory in most computers—should be Applied’s fastest-growing business in 2026.
At the heart of the debate: high-bandwidth memory, or HBM. This advanced memory, built by stacking DRAM chips, typically shows up alongside AI processors inside data centers.
The flip side is pretty clear—tariffs ramping up can shake demand projections, and if AI data-center construction pauses, tool orders could slow almost immediately. A minor tweak in how customers plan their capital spending might end up triggering a larger swing in equipment shares.
Next up for the company: its fiscal Q2 earnings call, set for May 14.
Until that point, AMAT is shaping up as a sentiment gauge for traders — equal parts macro vibes, AI capex proxy, and a positioning play.
Wednesday brings Nvidia’s earnings, widely seen as the next big trigger for AI-related stocks. Traders are bracing for a move that could jolt the sector either way.
