5 ms·

How does a stock market crash increase RAM prices (when RAM demand goes down)? Or would it affect people's purchasing power. I guess to some extent it does for

by andruby 24d ago

How does a stock market crash increase RAM prices (when RAM demand goes down)? Or would it affect people's purchasing power. I guess to some extent it does for people with significant investments in the stock market, but that's not a huge percentage of the people wanting to buy RAM or devices with RAM

josephcooney 24d ago
The second and third and fourth-order exposure to AI spending is maybe bigger than you think. The blast radius if it pops could be quite large. Patrick Boyle had an interesting video discussing this recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiYaWFP59Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiYaWFP59Q
- andruby 24d ago
  Sure, but how does it _increase_ RAM prices. It should decrease them because companies have less capital to buy RAM so demand decreases.
  - etdznots 24d ago
    I have no opinion on what will happen, and know close to nothing about the memory industry but just to think out loud about how market turbulence could cause memory prices to increase: - Suppliers that memory companies depend on JIT are entangled and go under, halting production or stalling capacity increases - Downstream suppliers / distributors for not vertically integrated memory companies go under, and there is a shortage of finished product ready for consumer use even though there is an excess of memory chips - Memory producers / fabs can’t handle the depressed demand and go under / have to halt production, alleviating the demand glut for the surviving suppliers, who have less competition. Coordinating a cartel becomes easier when there are fewer suppliers and becomes more desirable now that everyone realizes it’s a matter of survival. There are also plenty of good reasons to think prices will go down if demand is depressed, but it does seem possible for prices to go up
  - tshaddox 23d ago
    I didn't say that it would increase RAM prices. I said "may in practice cause RAM to remain unaffordable."

by andruby 24d ago

josephcooney 24d ago

The second and third and fourth-order exposure to AI spending is maybe bigger than you think. The blast radius if it pops could be quite large. Patrick Boyle had an interesting video discussing this recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiYaWFP59Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiYaWFP59Q

andruby 24d ago
Sure, but how does it _increase_ RAM prices. It should decrease them because companies have less capital to buy RAM so demand decreases.
- etdznots 24d ago
  I have no opinion on what will happen, and know close to nothing about the memory industry but just to think out loud about how market turbulence could cause memory prices to increase: - Suppliers that memory companies depend on JIT are entangled and go under, halting production or stalling capacity increases - Downstream suppliers / distributors for not vertically integrated memory companies go under, and there is a shortage of finished product ready for consumer use even though there is an excess of memory chips - Memory producers / fabs can’t handle the depressed demand and go under / have to halt production, alleviating the demand glut for the surviving suppliers, who have less competition. Coordinating a cartel becomes easier when there are fewer suppliers and becomes more desirable now that everyone realizes it’s a matter of survival. There are also plenty of good reasons to think prices will go down if demand is depressed, but it does seem possible for prices to go up
- tshaddox 23d ago
  I didn't say that it would increase RAM prices. I said "may in practice cause RAM to remain unaffordable."