Here's what top investing minds are saying about the latest global stock sell-off

Jim Paulsen: More downside if tech stocks break through previous low

Jim Paulsen, a Wall Street veteran and the former chief strategist at The Leuthold Group, said he expects more pain in the tech sector if the S&P 500 tech sector breaks through its previous technical low, which would mark another 3% drop to the early June trough.

Recent sell-offs in the AI sector have looked unprecedented from a historical perspective, Paulsen said, pointing to how the dot-com bubble only saw one round of heavy selling before the entire trade collapsed.

In recent months, Paulsen has flagged a handful of warning signs that suggest stocks are overextended, such as the growing divergence between tech and growth stocks and the rest of the S&P 500.

"It's sort of striking to watch what was the darlings of the move now kind of an afterthought," he said of how far some high-flying chip names have fallen.

Craig Johnson, Piper Sandler: Market needs to hit a new high to sustain momentum

Craig Johnson, a managing director and the chief market technician at Piper Sandler, said the sector was due for a pullback given its "parabolic" gains in recent months.

The sell-off looks to be part of a trend of market winners seeing a broadening out, he said, though he noted that a rebound in chips could be limited if the market doesn't hit a fresh high soon.

"If we don't see the market in the next several weeks break out to a new high, those dip buyers are going to fade away quickly. So we need to see confirmation of a new higher high here at some point," Johnson told Business Insider.

"I don't think that investors should forget that semiconductor stocks are cyclical. They're not secular and everybody is acting like they're secular," he added.

Andrew Slimmon, Morgan Stanley: The sell-off is "healthy"

Andrew Slimmon, a senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said the sell-off was a positive for markets, given how crowded the AI trade was. The hardest-hit stocks are the biggest beneficiaries of artificial intelligence, he told CNBC on Tuesday.

"In other words, it's captured the kind of zeitgeist of the momentum traders," Slimmon said of stocks that were hurt. "It's good for the markets because ultimately what you don't want to see is so much — kind of euphoria — that, you know, ends badly."

The pullback also represented an opportunity for investors looking to add to their tech and chip holdings, he added, pointing to strong earnings in the sector.

Bret Kenwell, eToro: "Perfect storm" for sell-off, weakness could last for weeks

Chip stocks had entered the "perfect storm" for a sell-off, given the relentless rally in the sector recently, Bret Kenwell, a US investment and options analyst at eToro, told Business Insider.

Kenwell said the weakness in the tech sector could last several weeks as the market winners continued to rotate.

"The Fed came out more hawkish than expected, and that's sort of been glossed over at this point. So I do think we have a couple weeks here where markets might take a bit of a breather," he said.

Joe Mazzola, Charles Schwab: Chips are getting 'stress-tested'

Investors will need to see if the market rally broadens out beyond chip names to determine if the latest sell-off is a pullback or a more robust breakdown, Joe Mazzola, the head of trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab, wrote in a note.

"At first glance, this looks less like a broad macro panic and more like a crowded leadership group finally getting stress-tested after an extended run. It could also represent a reset after a strong AI- and memory-led advance. It's not necessarily the start of a full-market breakdown unless selling broadens.

Dan Ives, Wedbush: Sell-off is a buying opportunity

Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities and among the market's biggest tech bulls, said that massive losses the market logged on Tuesday look like a prime opportunity for investors to get in on the tech trade.

The firm's checks on the chip sector in Asia and overall business demand for AI have shown "no cracks in the armor" in recent months, he said, adding that the firm remains extremely bullish on "AI winners" in the market.

"We view the KOSPI sell-off as a pullback/breather on a market up almost 100% this year and also believe SK overtaking Samsung was a big symbolic move that caused some investors to worry about an "overheated" memory chip trade.....which we strongly disagree with," Ives wrote in a client note on Tuesday.

David Rosenberg: Unclear if retail investors will rush to buy the dip

The chip sector looks like it's seeing a round of "vicious" profit-taking, David Rosenberg, a top economist and the founder of Rosenberg Research, wrote to clients on Tuesday.

It's unclear if retail investors will step in to buy the dip in stocks, he said, pointing to how US households already have historically high exposure to equities.

"The question now is whether the U.S. retail investor, filled with FOMO feelings, will emerge, yet again, as dip buyers. A legitimate question, seeing as mutual inflows have surged this past month, and at a time when equities comprise a record-high 73% share of the household sector's financial asset mix," Rosenberg wrote.