Monday's trading session brought a mix of disappointment and celebration across the technology sector, with one ambitious satellite venture suffering a literal fall to earth, two chipmakers slipping under the weight of weakening smartphone demand, and a memory storage giant ascending into one of the world's most prestigious stock indexes.
ASTS Comes Down to Earth
Shares of AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) tumbled sharply, falling roughly 11.8% in early trading, after the company suffered a serious setback over the weekend. The company had attempted to launch its Bluebird 7 satellite aboard Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, but the rocket placed the satellite into a lower orbit than originally planned. That orbit proved too low for the satellite to operate properly, and as a result, ASTS announced that the satellite will now be deorbited, meaning it will fall back into Earth's atmosphere and burn up. Effectively, the satellite is a total loss.
The company has indicated that it expects to recover the cost through insurance, which softens the financial blow, but clearly not enough to satisfy investors. The setback is more than just a hardware loss; it raises questions about timing and overall sentiment around the company's ambitious roadmap. ASTS is attempting to build a satellite broadband network that would connect cell phones directly to satellites, a potentially transformative technology in the telecommunications space. The plan calls for launching satellites every one to two months throughout 2026, with a target of approximately 45 satellites in orbit by year end.
Wall Street is watching closely, and the central question now is whether the company can still hit that aggressive timeline. There is also competitive risk to consider, as other firms are vying for position in the same market. Analysts generally view this as a setback rather than a deal breaker, and the broader roadmap remains intact. Still, the market is treating this as an unaccounted-for risk, and the stock is paying the price.
Mizuho Turns Bearish on Qorvo and Skyworks
Mizuho issued downgrades on two prominent semiconductor names, Qorvo and Skyworks, with both stocks falling more than 1% on the news. Qorvo was cut to underperform from neutral, a notable shift that goes beyond moving to the sidelines and signals an actively bearish stance. Skyworks was likewise downgraded to underperform.
The thesis behind the downgrades is that the smartphone supply chain is weakening, and both companies have heavy exposure to handset demand. Both manufacturers produce radio frequency chips and connectivity components used in smartphones — the parts that allow phones to connect to 5G networks, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular service. When phone sales soften, demand for these chips falls in tandem.
This view of weakening smartphone demand is not new, but Mizuho's analysis adds another voice to the chorus. Compounding the issue are concerns about memory shortages and rising costs, which could create knock-on effects that further dampen smartphone demand. China is also flagged as a key risk factor, both because of pressure on sales there and because Chinese firms are increasingly producing their own chips, intensifying the competitive landscape. The bottom line for retail investors is that the smartphone slump may last longer than expected, with downstream consequences for chipmakers like Qorvo and Skyworks.
SanDisk Joins the Nasdaq 100
In a contrasting story of momentum and reward, SanDisk officially joined the Nasdaq 100 today, replacing Atlassian. Index inclusion is a meaningful milestone because many ETFs and index funds that track the Nasdaq 100 are required to buy shares of newly added companies, providing a built-in source of buying pressure. Shares ticked higher on the news.
SanDisk has been one of the biggest winners over the past year, with its stock up nearly 3,000% — a staggering rally fueled by the AI data center boom and the surging demand for memory chips capable of storing massive volumes of data. Investors have been richly rewarding companies tied to the AI infrastructure buildout, and SanDisk supplies flash memory products and storage chips used across servers, data centers, enterprise systems, PCs, and consumer devices. While GPUs tend to capture the spotlight in conversations about the AI arms race, memory is an essential and often underappreciated piece of the puzzle.
Wells Fargo also raised its price target on SanDisk, lifting it to $975 from $675. Notably, the analyst essentially conceded that they had underestimated the move, but still stopped short of turning bullish. The firm is maintaining an equal weight rating, taking the view that the current valuation already reflects much of the good news.
A Tale of Diverging Fortunes
Taken together, these three stories paint a vivid picture of a technology sector splitting along sharply different lines. Companies anchored to consumer hardware cycles, particularly smartphones, are facing skepticism about how much longer the slowdown will persist. Ambitious frontier projects, like building satellite-to-phone broadband networks, remain vulnerable to the unforgiving physics of space and the high cost of single-point failures. Meanwhile, businesses positioned at the heart of the AI infrastructure buildout continue to enjoy extraordinary tailwinds — even when analysts begin to wonder whether valuations have run ahead of fundamentals. The market's verdict on Monday made all three dynamics impossible to miss.