Biggo Finance

• Foreign investors injected a net $11.51 billion into the bond markets of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and India in June. • This surge represents the strongest monthly inflow since November 2025, driven by falling oil prices and a booming global tech cycle. • The shift occurred as equity market volatility pushed investors toward the relative safety of sovereign debt and improved regional economic outlooks.

• South Korea's Kospi index crashed through the 6,000 level during the third week of July (13th-16th), experiencing extreme volatility. • The market saw circuit breakers triggered every single trading day, driven by investor fears of a "peak-out" in the semiconductor sector. • Major industry players including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and TSMC were impacted as concerns grew over the sustainability of the AI cycle.

• Global AI investment cooldown triggered a massive sell-off in chip stocks, causing Japan's market to briefly plunge 4% and Zhipu to drop over 12% at the open. • Significant losses were recorded by major players, including Kioxia, which hit its daily limit down, and SK Hynix ADR, which plummeted 13.69% in its previous session. • The Hong Kong market saw heavy losses in leveraged ETFs, with CSOP Hynix 2x Long falling 13.24% and CSOP Samsung 2x Long dropping 3.61%.

• Asian equities experienced a severe sell-off, highlighted by South Korea's KOSPI index plummeting as much as 7% intraday and triggering circuit breaker concerns. • Memory-related stocks were the hardest hit, though ChipMOS surged nearly 8% as investors sought a safe haven amidst the volatility. • Despite bullish AI-driven outlooks from Barclays and Nanya Technology President Lee Pei-Ing, analysts warn that low trading volume makes a V-shaped recovery unlikely for the Taiwan market.

• SK Automation secured a significant order valued at RMB 4.5 billion from battery giant CATL, while Lingyun Guang reported a nearly six-fold increase in net profit driven by AI investments. • Xingye Silver & Tin, via its subsidiary Xingye Gold (Hong Kong), acquired a 20% stake in Australian-listed Tartana Minerals Limited (TAT) for approximately A$5.1827 million. • These developments, announced after the market close on July 16, highlight a surge in strategic industrial growth and overseas mineral resource expansion for companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.

• European stock markets showed mixed results on the 15th, as the STOXX Europe 600 Index struggled to find a clear direction. • Strong corporate earnings from semiconductor giant ASML Holding and luxury goods firm Richemont provided support, offsetting broader market volatility. • Geopolitical instability in the Middle East acted as a primary headwind, weighing on investor sentiment and impacting indices like the FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX.

• US and South Korean tech stocks faced significant volatility and declines as US Treasury yields surged beyond 4.6%. • J.P. Morgan Asset Management reports that TSMC has achieved record-high revenue, asserting that the current demand for AI is not a bubble. • Taiwan's corporate earnings growth is projected to reach 27.4% in 2027 and a remarkable 43.3% by 2026, driven by semiconductor exports.

• Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is exploring a new funding round only one month after its first external fundraising effort. • The company has begun preparations for an IPO in mainland China, with a potential filing in late 2026 and a target listing date in 2027. • DeepSeek is targeting a valuation of $70.9 billion to support massive capital requirements for proprietary data centers and in-house AI inference chips.

• SK Hynix shares plunged over 12% in Seoul on July 13, triggering a circuit breaker, while Samsung Electronics saw a decline of more than 8%. • The sell-off spread to Taiwan's market, causing memory chip stocks like Nanya Technology and Winbond to reverse their initial gains and turn negative. • The crash stems from intensifying investor concerns regarding stretched valuations and the potential for a memory chip oversupply.

• Investor Michael Burry warns of a potential AI bubble, citing a contradiction between Nvidia's need for endless chip demand and cloud providers' plans to reduce capital expenditures within three to four years. • Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have criticized AI labs for implementing excessive pricing and undermining the data sovereignty of enterprise clients. • Chinese low-cost models, specifically DeepSeek, are aggressively capturing developer market share by offering services at less than one-thirtieth the cost of U.S. competitors.