Monday’s session was a genuine tale of two markets — blue chips edged higher while an entirely different group of names got crushed. The top stock losers today span a small-cap biotech that lost two-thirds of its value before the opening bell, an entire memory chip sector rattled by a single Shanghai IPO, and a cluster of overlooked crypto miners caught in a sector rotation.
Today’s Market Pulse | Blue Chips Rise While Chips and Biotech Bleed
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.51% to close at 52,210.08 as oil prices tumbled, while the S&P 500 inched up just 0.02% to 7,413.18, snapping a four-session losing streak. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.18% to 24,932.08, dragged lower by a broad semiconductor selloff even as most individual stocks in the index actually rose. WTI crude oil sank over 8% to around $82 a barrel on news of a U.S.-Iran de-escalation, and the 10-year Treasury yield eased slightly to 4.65%. Energy and technology were Monday’s worst-performing sectors, while consumer defensive and communication names led gainers — a split that set the stage for today’s list of decliners.
1. Capricor Therapeutics (CAPR) | A 67% Collapse Before the Opening Bell
Capricor shares were down as much as 69.09% in premarket trading, settling into a 67.7% decline that erased more than $190 million in market value by the time regular trading got underway.
| Metric | Level |
|---|---|
| Premarket Low | -69.09% |
| Settled Decline | -67.7% |
| Market Value Erased | $190+ million |
| PDUFA Target Date | August 22, 2026 |
The Catalyst
The FDA released briefing documents ahead of an advisory committee meeting reviewing Capricor’s Biologics License Application for Deramiocel, its lead cell therapy for cardiomyopathy in Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients. The documents raised doubts about whether the drug’s data meets the FDA’s standard for substantial evidence of effectiveness, with reviewers specifically flagging concerns over changes made to the statistical analysis plan for the company’s Phase 3 HOPE-3 trial. That’s despite Capricor having announced in December 2025 that HOPE-3 met both its primary and key secondary endpoints with statistically significant results.
Why It Matters
Deramiocel’s approval rests on a single pivotal trial, meaning the FDA’s skeptical framing carries outsized weight — a stark reminder of the binary risk embedded in late-stage biotech names ahead of advisory committee votes.
2. SanDisk Corporation (SNDK) | China’s Memory Chip Invasion Arrives
SanDisk shares plunged between 11% and 14.7% intraday, breaking below the closely watched $1,300 technical support level to a low of $1,226.90 — the stock’s lowest level since early May.
| Metric | Level |
|---|---|
| Intraday Decline | -11% to -14.7% |
| Intraday Low | $1,226.90 |
| Technical Support Broken | $1,300 |
| Next Technical Level | ~$1,000-$1,100 |
| Average Analyst Price Target | $2,095.11 |
| Next Earnings Date | August 5, 2026 |
The Catalyst
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) completed an $8.6 billion IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, surging 466% on its debut to close with a $487 billion market capitalization — briefly surpassing Intel’s market cap in the process. CXMT is now the world’s fourth-largest DRAM maker at roughly 8% market share, trailing Samsung (36%), SK Hynix (29%), and Micron (24%), and Apple has reportedly begun testing CXMT’s DRAM chips, raising fears that Chinese memory could reach top-tier customers faster than previously assumed.
Bull vs. Bear
Bull case: CXMT remains constrained by U.S. export controls on advanced chipmaking tools and sits on the Pentagon’s list of firms with alleged military ties, limiting its near-term ability to meaningfully ease the global memory shortage. Bear case: New Chinese DRAM and NAND supply threatens to pressure the pricing power that has expanded gross margins across incumbents like SanDisk throughout 2026, and the stock now heads into its August 5 earnings report in a technically damaged, high-volatility position.
3. Nvidia (NVDA) | The World’s Most-Watched Stock Slides on a China Headline
Nvidia shares fell approximately 5% — its steepest single-day decline since February 2026 — breaking through multiple moving averages spanning the 5-day to 120-day range, touching an intraday low of $195.44.
The Catalyst
Reports surfaced that a Chinese company may be positioned to mass-manufacture key chipmaking equipment, raising fresh concerns about China’s push toward semiconductor self-sufficiency — a headline that landed the same day as CXMT’s blockbuster IPO. The decline came even as Nvidia and South Korea’s SK Group announced an AI cooperation agreement exceeding $500 billion the prior Friday, and as the company continues negotiating a guarantee agreement worth up to $250 billion tied to OpenAI’s data center leasing plans in Ohio.
Why It Matters
The drop was significant enough that Apple overtook Nvidia as the world’s largest company by market capitalization Monday — a symbolic shift underscoring how quickly China-related headlines can move even the market’s most dominant name.
4. Micron Technology (MU) | Caught in the Same Crossfire
Micron shares fell between 5% and 5.75% to around $871, moving in lockstep with the broader memory sector selloff triggered by CXMT’s Shanghai debut.
The Catalyst
As one of the “big three” DRAM makers alongside Samsung and SK Hynix, Micron faces the most direct long-term competitive threat from CXMT’s emergence, even though analysts note the Chinese firm remains years away from closing the technology gap in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which continues to carry high technical barriers.
Why It Matters
Micron’s decline alongside SanDisk signals this was a genuine sector-wide repricing of competitive risk rather than an isolated, single-company event.
5. Western Digital (WDC) | Storage Names Get Swept Up Too
Western Digital shares dropped 7% to around $483, one of the steeper declines among Monday’s memory and storage names.
The Catalyst
Western Digital’s decline tracked the same CXMT-driven sector selloff hitting SanDisk and Micron, with the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) falling 4% to $51 — a reminder that this was a coordinated hit across the entire NAND and DRAM value chain rather than a story specific to any single company’s fundamentals.
Why It Matters
The breadth of today’s memory-sector decline, spanning DRAM and NAND makers alike, suggests investors are recalibrating the entire group’s multi-year pricing power assumptions in a single trading session.
6. SK Hynix (SKHY) | Korea’s Memory Giant Gives Back Gains
SK Hynix American Depositary Receipts fell between 6% and 8% to around $145, reversing an earlier Monday gain the stock had posted ahead of its own Q2 2026 earnings report, due Tuesday after the U.S. market close.
The Catalyst
As the world’s second-largest DRAM maker by market share (29%), SK Hynix has arguably the most direct competitive overlap with CXMT of any global memory maker, making it a natural target for today’s sector-wide selling pressure heading straight into its own earnings report.
Why It Matters
SK Hynix’s earnings Tuesday will be the market’s first direct read on how a major incumbent memory maker is framing the CXMT competitive threat — a report likely to set the tone for the rest of the memory sector this week.
7. Legend Biotech (LEGN) | An Analyst Downgrade Ends a Rough Slide
Legend Biotech shares fell 13.97%, continuing a steady decline from around $29.91 in early July to roughly $22.22 by July 24, and lower still Monday.
The Catalyst
UBS downgraded Legend Biotech to Neutral from Buy, slashing its price target to $28 from $49. The downgrade centers on weaker-than-expected growth expectations for the company’s flagship cell therapy, Carvykti, as UBS now sees a smaller addressable market opportunity given crowding in the multiple myeloma treatment space from competing therapies Anito-cel, Tecvayli, and Talvey.
Why It Matters
The scale of UBS’s price target cut — nearly 43% — signals a meaningful reassessment of Carvykti’s long-term commercial ceiling, not just a short-term sentiment shift.
8. Core Scientific (CORZ) | A Crypto Miner Caught Mid-Pivot
Core Scientific shares fell 8.84% Monday, even as broader crypto-linked equities rallied on the day.
The Catalyst
The decline followed an analyst downgrade to Hold, with the analyst noting that Core Scientific appears to be lagging peers in its transition from pure Bitcoin mining toward AI data center operations — a pivot that has become increasingly common across the mining industry but where Core Scientific has yet to show clear signs of progress or momentum.
Why It Matters
Core Scientific’s decline stands out precisely because it moved opposite to the day’s broader crypto-stock rally, underscoring that company-specific execution concerns, not sector sentiment, were the driver.
9. Cipher Mining (CIFR) | Bitcoin Miners Left Behind the Rally
Cipher Mining led a broader bitcoin mining sector decline with an 8% drop, while sector peers Hut 8 and TeraWulf fell 6% and 4%, respectively, and Riot Platforms and CleanSpark each declined around 5% and 4%.
The Catalyst
Even as ether-focused crypto treasury stocks like BitMine Immersion and Strategy surged Monday, pure-play Bitcoin miners with AI infrastructure ambitions got caught in the same broader selloff hitting chip and AI infrastructure names, driven by growing concerns over circular financing arrangements in the AI data center buildout and intensifying competition from Chinese semiconductor companies.
Why It Matters
The divergence between surging crypto-treasury stocks and sliding Bitcoin miners on the same day illustrates how differently the market is now pricing “AI-adjacent” crypto infrastructure plays versus pure balance-sheet crypto exposure.
Quick-Reference Table: Today’s Top 10 Losers
| Rank | Ticker | Company | Move | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CAPR | Capricor Therapeutics | -67.7% | Biotech |
| 2 | SNDK | SanDisk Corporation | -11% to -14.7% | Memory chips |
| 3 | NVDA | Nvidia | ~-5% | Semiconductors |
| 4 | MU | Micron Technology | -5% to -5.75% | Memory chips |
| 5 | WDC | Western Digital | -7% | Storage/memory |
| 6 | SKHY | SK Hynix (ADR) | -6% to -8% | Memory chips |
| 7 | LEGN | Legend Biotech | -13.97% | Biotech |
| 8 | CORZ | Core Scientific | -8.84% | Crypto mining/AI data centers |
| 9 | CIFR | Cipher Mining | -8% | Bitcoin mining |
| 10 | APLD | Applied Digital | -3% | AI data centers |
Sector Sentiment Snapshot and Forecast
Today’s losers list is dominated by two distinct stories: a single Shanghai IPO that reshaped competitive assumptions across the entire global memory chip sector in one session, and a pair of binary, catalyst-driven collapses in smaller biotech names. Interestingly, Bitcoin miners like Cipher Mining and Core Scientific declined even as the broader crypto sector rallied, highlighting a growing market distinction between AI-infrastructure-exposed miners and pure crypto-treasury plays. With SK Hynix reporting earnings Tuesday and the broader memory sector now trading in reactive, headline-driven mode, expect continued volatility across chip names this week — right as the market heads into Wednesday’s Fed decision and Thursday’s Big Tech earnings gauntlet.
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Disclaimer: This publication is entirely for informational and journalistic purposes and does not constitute formal financial, investment, or legal advice. All market investments carry inherent risks of capital loss. Always complete independent due diligence prior to executing equity trades.
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