What Happened?

A number of stocks fell in the morning session after the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.14% following strong September business activity data that raised expectations for tighter Federal Reserve interest rate policy. 

Technology and semiconductor shares came under selling pressure in premarket trading on September 24, according to TipRanks. 

The 10-year Treasury yield is the return investors earn for lending money to the U.S. government for a decade. When it rises, safer bonds become more attractive compared with stocks. That shift matters most for technology companies. Their valuations often rest on profits expected years in the future. Higher yields reduce what those future earnings are worth in today's dollars. The jump in yields followed strong September business activity data. Solid economic readings can lead investors to expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates higher, or raise them further, to prevent the economy from overheating. 

Tighter policy increases borrowing costs and can weigh on growth-focused sectors. Other pressures added to the selling. Elevated crude oil prices raised concerns about inflation. There is also uncertainty over trade and tariffs on advanced semiconductors ahead of the summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods, and any new restrictions could affect chipmakers that depend on global supply chains and sales to China. 

Together, rising rates, energy costs, and trade uncertainty created a difficult setting for the sector.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.

Among others, the following stocks were impacted:

• Analog Semiconductors company Himax (NASDAQ: HIMX) fell 3%. Is now the time to buy Himax? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Analog Semiconductors company Power Integrations (NASDAQ: POWI) fell 3.1%. Is now the time to buy Power Integrations? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Analog Semiconductors company MACOM (NASDAQ: MTSI) fell 2.7%. Is now the time to buy MACOM? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Analog Semiconductors company onsemi (NASDAQ: ON) fell 2.9%. Is now the time to buy onsemi? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Analog Semiconductors company Microchip Technology (NASDAQ: MCHP) fell 3%. Is now the time to buy Microchip Technology? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Zooming In On Power Integrations (POWI)

Power Integrations’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 40 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 2 days ago when the stock gained 5% on the news that growing optimism surrounding agentic artificial intelligence and Meta Platforms' Muse application fueled expectations of higher demand for central processing units. Reuters reported that Meta's Muse application has highlighted the specialized hardware needed to support these next-generation workflows. While initial generative AI infrastructure prioritized graphics accelerators for model training, agentic frameworks depend heavily on central processing units to coordinate complex operations and manage logic across sequential processes. 

This shift suggests a broadened demand profile across semiconductor hardware suppliers as autonomous enterprise software capabilities expand.

Power Integrations is up 34.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $50.10 per share, it is still trading 42.6% below its 52-week high of $87.35 from June 2026. Despite the year-to-date gain, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Power Integrations’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $471.43.

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