Wall Street tech stocks head for $1tn sell-off as DeepSeek rattles investors

European stocks were under pressure as advances by Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek sparked a sell-off in chipmaking groups and related tech companies.

The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.4 per cent around midday on the continent. The broad-based index was dragged down by shares in Europe’s most valuable technology company, ASML, which shed 8 per cent. Dutch semiconductor company ASM International extended earlier losses to trade down 13 per cent.

Germany’s Dax was down 0.9 per cent as software giant SAP fell about 1.8 per cent, while Paris’s Cac 40 shed 0.6 per cent as Schneider Electric, an AI supply chain company, was down 9 per cent.

The Stoxx Europe technology index plunged as much as 4 per cent. “This is the first crack in the AI trade,” Barclays analyst Emmanuel Cau said.