TOKYO — Shares in SoftBank Group sustained a series of sharp declines over several weeks in June 2026, with the Japanese technology investment conglomerate losing roughly 20% of its market value as a broader sell-off swept through Asian technology stocks.
Shares in SoftBank Group plunged roughly 20% over the course of a week in early June 2026, erasing close to $50 billion, or 5 trillion yen, in market capitalization. The collapse came just days after the company reached a historic milestone. On or around June 1, SoftBank's shares surged 14% in a single session, propelling the firm past Toyota to claim the title of Japan's most valuable public company.
Asian tech stocks extended their sell-off as investors soured on global AI-linked plays, with memory chip makers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix closing one session down more than 10% and more than 7%, respectively. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was also down, while Japanese chip equipment makers Tokyo Electron and Advantest recorded declines of more than 7% and more than 5%, respectively, according to CNBC.
SoftBank Group's shares fell more than 8% in Tokyo on June 10 after Bloomberg News reported that the company's attempt to raise $6 billion through a margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake had stalled. The financing failure added to an already weak session for the broader Asian technology sector.
The broader sell-off was triggered in part after Broadcom's revenue for its fiscal second quarter missed market estimates, plunging its shares and causing a cascading impact on the technology sector. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF lost more than 9% in one Friday session, while SoftBank's British chip unit Arm Holdings dropped nearly 13%, and Micron Technology declined more than 13%, according to CNBC. A UOB note cited at the time estimated that the tech-led rout erased approximately $1.8 trillion in S&P 500 market capitalization.
The moves also followed risk-off sentiment amid expectations that interest rates in the United States could stay higher for longer, following U.S. labor data that sharply beat estimates. "We are pushing the final two rate cuts in our Fed forecast back to June and December of 2027. The labor market has been stronger than we anticipated," Goldman Sachs said in a note.
SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son addressed the market volatility, telling CNBC that a correction would be "the best investment opportunity" for the company.
SoftBank's cumulative investment in OpenAI has exceeded $60 billion, according to TradingKey, with the company also backing the Stargate AI infrastructure initiative in the United States alongside other major technology players.
Before the sell-off, SoftBank's stock had climbed roughly 90% year-to-date in 2026, driven largely by investor enthusiasm for its artificial intelligence portfolio. Trading in SoftBank shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange continued to be closely watched by markets as conditions across the global technology sector remained unsettled.
