SoftBank Reels Under Twin Blows: OpenAI’s Billion-Dollar Hiccup and a Tech-Wide Washout
Published on 06/29/2026 at 16:25 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The party in Tokyo turned sour this week as SoftBank Group found itself caught between a delayed OpenAI listing and a sweeping semiconductor selloff that erased billions in market value. Investors who had piled into the stock on AI euphoria are now rushing for the exits, leaving the Japanese conglomerate nursing its worst decline in weeks.
Shares of SoftBank tumbled nearly 5% in a single session, breaching the psychological threshold of 6,000 yen to touch a one-month low. The pain has been building: over the past week, the stock has shed 12.9%, and the 30-day slide now exceeds 20%. With annualised volatility clocking in at 115% — a level more typical of crypto than a $100 billion-plus conglomerate — analysts are eyeing the next support zone between 4,800 and 5,000 yen.
The immediate catalyst was a double dose of bad news from across the Pacific. OpenAI, in which SoftBank holds a $60 billion stake as the second-largest external shareholder, has pushed back its initial public offering to 2027. Chief executive Sam Altman is clinging to a valuation target of $1 trillion, but the market is balking at that price tag in a tightening liquidity environment. The artificial intelligence pioneer’s own finances add to the gloom: it posted a net loss of $21.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026, following a year in which $34 billion of expenses were set against just $13 billion in revenue.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SoftBank?
That OpenAI delay removed a key catalyst that had been propping up SoftBank’s stock. Without a concrete exit timetable, the portfolio’s paper gains look increasingly fragile.
The selloff is not confined to SoftBank. In Tokyo, Advantest and Kioxia both came under heavy pressure, dragging the broader Nikkei 225 down by more than 800 points. On Wall Street, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 5% in a single session late last week as investors rotated out of high-multiple tech names into defensive sectors. Geopolitical headwinds are adding to the macro anxiety: tensions in the Middle East have pushed Brent crude to around $72 a barrel, raising input costs for capital-intensive tech plays.
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder, is not waiting for the storm to pass. The group is backing robotics startup Roze, which plans to go public in the second half of 2026 with an ambitious valuation of roughly $100 billion. The move is a deliberate hedge against SoftBank’s heavy exposure to large language models — while OpenAI alone plans to sink $600 billion into AI infrastructure by 2030, Son is betting that hardware and automation will provide a more resilient second leg.
The coming weeks will test whether that strategy resonates. On July 7, 2026, the Bank of Japan releases its Tankan survey, which will offer crucial clues on the direction of interest rates. Combined with fresh US jobs data, these readings could determine whether beaten-down AI names finally find a floor — or whether SoftBank’s slide has further to run. The Roze IPO, when it materialises, will be the first real test of whether investors buy Son’s pivot.
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