Arm Holdings Plc (NASDAQ:ARM) dropped sharply Thursday as geopolitical fears rattled global markets, pulling semiconductor stocks lower despite supportive industry tailwinds.

The Nasdaq dropped 1.88%, while the S&P 500 declined 1.39%.

Geopolitical Friction Sparks Sector Sell-Off

Escalating conflict in the Middle East, particularly involving Iran, triggered a broad sell-off in semiconductor stocks. President Donald Trump’s remarks on Wednesday warning of potential military action pushed oil prices higher and pressured risk assets, including tech.

Major peers like Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) also saw significant declines.

Top Executives Unload Shares

CEO Rene Haas sold 31,850 shares on March 25-26 at an average price of $161.09, totaling approximately $5.13 million. Similarly, Chief Financial Officer Jason Child offloaded 21,280 shares on March 25 at $148.37 per share, a transaction valued at $3.16 million.

Hyperscalers Pivot Toward Arm Architecture

Despite the price drop, Counterpoint Research noted a structural shift in AI infrastructure. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) are increasingly moving away from legacy x86 CPUs. These hyperscalers are adopting proprietary Arm-based designs to optimize cost and efficiency.

Technical Analysis

At $147.64, Arm is trading 12.6% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA), the stock’s average price over the last 20 sessions. It’s 18.1% above its 100-day SMA.

Moving average convergence divergence (MACD), a trend/momentum measure, is bullish with the MACD line at 7.7214 above the signal line at 5.4988.

On a longer lens, the stock is up 37.14% over the last 12 months, a backward-looking gain that shows buyers have controlled the bigger picture. Price is also sitting well above the 52-week low of $80.00 but below the $183.16 high.

  • Key Resistance: $167.00
  • Key Support: $137.50

ARM Price Action: ARM Holdings shares were down 3.02% at $150.38 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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