Broadcom Slides 5% Amid Chip Selloff as Anthropic Deal Draws Scrutiny Over Junk Credit Risk

Broadcom shares fell roughly 5%, trading at $327.49 on Friday, dragged down by a broad semiconductor selloff triggered by Intel's dismal earnings guidance and weaker-than-expected results from Amazon. Intel plunged more than 25%, AMD dropped around 8-12%, and Arm and Qualcomm sank approximately 10%, pulling the entire chip sector lower. Broadcom is now down about 31.9%-34.8% from its 52-week high set on June 2, 2026.

The session's losses came despite a DA Davidson upgrade tied to Broadcom's role in Anthropic's $63 billion financing deal, known as Project North Star. Under the structure, Broadcom guarantees more than $42 billion in senior loans supporting Anthropic's lease of 1.5 gigawatts of Google's AI chips, while another $18 billion in junior debt is backed by Anthropic's lease payments. Blackstone invested $9 billion in that junior tranche, earning yields above 10%.

Complicating the picture, Blackstone has told investors that Anthropic is now expected to receive a below-investment-grade, double-B credit rating after its IPO, reversing earlier expectations of an investment-grade rating by year-end. Moody's, S&P, and Fitch have not yet formally issued ratings. A junk rating would raise Anthropic's borrowing costs and restrict access to pension funds and insurers, meaning the company may need to continue leaning on Broadcom's investment-grade standing to support its financing. A former SEC chair publicly compared the deal's structure to the off-balance-sheet arrangements that characterized the 2008 financial crisis.

Broadcom's longer-term AI outlook remains a key debate on Wall Street. The company has projected that its AI revenue will more than double in 2027, and the Anthropic relationship, along with reported ties to OpenAI's IPO pipeline, underpins analyst optimism. Separately, Marvell Technology is rumored to be in talks to acquire Lumentum, a potential competitive challenge to Broadcom in optical networking. Anthropic's own IPO prospectus outlines plans to spend more than $800 billion on computing infrastructure through 2045, with reported cash holdings above $112 billion and a potential $100 billion IPO raise.