Take notes friends, because it looks like ASML just gave us all an absolute clinic on how NOT to release earnings. In short, shares of the Dutch chipmaker pretty much body-bagged investors, falling 15.7% today after the company’s third-quarter earnings were accidentally fat fingered and leaked to the public early. 

(Source: Euro News) 

This ultimately resulted in ASML’s worst single-day drop since going public in 2002, which is saying something for a company that literally makes the machines that build every tech nerd's insatiable appetite for the AI future. 

(Source: Giphy) 

The bad part about all of this is that the leaked earnings gave everyone a little dose of reality: a lowered sales outlook for 2025. And by “lowered” I mean, instead of  €30 billion and €40 billion in 2025… let’s go ahead and knock that down to €30 billion to €35 billion. Meaning, as you can imagine, investors pretty much lost their collective minds.

(Source: Benzinga) 

Share’s tumbled nearly 16% almost instantly, while the entire semiconductor sector felt the aftershocks. Nvidia dropped over 5%, and Arm Holdings wasn't far behind, down more than 7%. It was like a Hollywood panic attack, and ASML just so happened to be P-Diddy. 

Now in response, ASML’s CEO, Christophe Fouquet, tried to calm everyone down by pointing fingers at “market dynamics.” Translation: it’s complicated. You see, while AI is still booming, other market segments (looking at you, logic and memory chips) are recovering slower than a snail on Ambien. 

The delays in demand for ASML’s crown jewel—their extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines—are the real problem here. These machines print the world's most advanced semiconductors, but if people aren’t buying, those machines are just extremely expensive paperweights. So as you can expect when Fouquet basically said, "Yeah, our 2025 forecast is looking more like €30 billion to €35 billion now, and our gross margin might dip to around 51%-53%." - investors heard that and promptly hit the sell button. 

(Source: Giphy) 

But, but, but… what’s even more interesting about this leak and chaos is that ASML’s actual Q3 earnings weren’t even that bad LOL. They posted €7.5 billion in net sales, slightly beating analyst expectations of €7.12 billion. Their gross margin was a respectable 50.8%, and net income clocked in at €2.1 billion. So by all standard measures, Q3 was solid.

Additionally, ASML expects Q4 sales to come in between €8.8 billion and €9.2 billion, with margins holding steady around 49%-50%. They’re also sticking to their full-year 2024 sales target of €28 billion. But none of that matters when you scare everyone with a grim 2025 outlook. Timing = everything. 

(Source: NL Times) 

For this reason, ASML’s slip-up didn’t just hurt their stock; it rattled the entire semiconductor sector. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell over 4%, and the broader tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dipped more than 1%. Oh, and just to add salt to the wound, the Biden administration is reportedly thinking about capping sales of advanced AI chips from Nvidia and other U.S. firms. So, you know, just another day in the Bi-polar west of semiconductors.

(Source: Yahoo Finance) 

In the end though, ASML will probably be fine in the long run. Sure, they’ve got some short-term headaches (like the whole EUV thing), but the semiconductor market is still growing, and AI is still the golden goose laying platinum eggs. Sure, investors might be spooked now, but they’ll come back once the recovery picks up— especially once ASML learns to keep a tighter lid on their earnings reports. Lawd have mercay.

In the meantime, try not to look at your tech portfolio today and as always stay safe and stay frosty, friends! Until next time… 

P.S. Are you ready?! We are about to drop our next explosive alert very, very soon… so make sure you click here asap before this stock starts moving! 

Stocks.News doesn’t hold any positions in companies mentioned in the article.