Trump's Huawei Ban Is Hurting US Tech Companies, Stocks Plunge

Shares of U.S. firms doing a large amount of business with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. took a pummeling on Wall Street Monday following the U.S. government's decision to add the Chinese firm to its Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) blacklist.

A number of American chipmakers, including Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx, and Broadcom, have now stopped supplying Huawei with their products until further notice, according to various media reports. Their shares were hit following the ban, which was introduced by the Trump administration last week.

Huawei, the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, purchases more than $20 billion worth of semiconductors every year, according to data from global investment banking advisory firm, Evercore Inc.

Broadcom stock fell more than 5 percent on Monday. Shares of Xilinx slipped 3.5 percent, while Qualcomm stock dropped almost 6 percent. Shares of Analog Devices and Advanced Micro Devices are under pressure following the Huawei ban.

Also in danger are other American tech firms such as Skyworks Solutions and Qorv, which all rely on their growth from 5G infrastructure.

The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF was down almost 4 percent Monday, or close to 15 percent below its intraday all-time high. All but one component of the ETF were at correction levels or worse on Monday and almost half of the 25 stocks are at bear market levels.

The ETF tracks the overall performance of companies involved in semiconductor production and equipment. It seeks to replicate as closely as possible (before fees and expenses) the price and yield performance of the MVIS U.S. Listed Semiconductor 25 Index (MVSMHTR).

The battering being taken by tech isn’t lost on analysts, who predict more of the same this week as more tech companies heed the government’s ban on doing business with Huawei. Some analysts point out the ban will also hurt the U.S. economy and U.S. national security, as well.

"Let's be clear, we are talking tens of billions of dollars impact," said C.J. Muse, senior equity research analyst at Evercore.

"Loss of this business would slow down investments by U.S. chipmakers, thereby reducing the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry -- and that is a national security issue that the U.S. government needs to consider, as well."

U.S. restrictions will badly hurt companies with considerable revenue exposure to 5G and the Chinese market, said RBC analyst Mitch Steves.

"We view the Huawei and China/US relationship as a negative overhang on the semiconductor space and a lift of either would likely send the semiconductor industry materially higher (5-10% in our view)," said Steves in a note Sunday.

On May 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Huawei and its affiliates to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List. This blacklist makes it more difficult for Huawei to conduct business with U.S. companies as they can no longer sell or transfer technology to Huawei without a license issued by the BIS. ​

The commerce department hit Huawei after president Donald Trump on May 15 declared a national emergency to “deal with the threat posed by the unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology… supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries.”