ASML shares fall 12% in October despite record quarter

The Dutch chip equipment giant beat expectations and raised guidance, then got caught in a broad AI and semiconductor sell-off ASML just posted the best quarter in its history and raised its full-year outlook. Its stock fell 12% in October anyway. The decline came as investors dumped AI-linked semiconductor names. ASML’s results were strong. The market was simply in no mood to reward them. A record quarter meets a hostile tape On October 14, ASML reported third-quarter 2026 net sales of €11.7 billion. Net income came in at approximately €5.0 billion. Both figures topped expectations and marked a significant jump from the same period a year earlier. The engine behind those numbers was extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV. Think of an EUV machine as the world’s most precise printing press, one that etches circuit patterns onto silicon at a scale measured in nanometers. ASML is the only company that makes them. EUV systems made up 49% of ASML’s system sales in the quarter. Those machines are sold out until 2028, which gives the company the kind of order visibility most manufacturers can only daydream about. Management responded by lifting its full-year 2026 sales guidance to €44–45...