Apple’s reported move toward Chinese memory is turning into a much bigger story for the sector than the first headlines suggested, and I think the market is worrying about the wrong part of it. The reports say Apple is testing CXMT for DRAM and YMTC for NAND, aimed at iPhones and other devices sold specifically inside China, with Washington possibly deciding whether to allow it after a Trump-Xi meeting in September.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed Friday down 5.29 percent at 13,203.57, its worst session since the spring. The tape read like capitulation. The cause did not. Nothing broke in the semiconductor business on Friday. What broke was the market’s assumption about the price of money, and that is a far more recoverable wound than a demand shock. The case for stabilization next week does not rest on optimism. It rests on the distinction between a rate scare and a fundamental break, and on the fact that every catalyst now pointing down is the kind that exhausts itself.