☕️ [Task Coins Giveaway] Daily Market Talk — Memory Chips Fall Into a Bear Market

The hottest trade of 2026 just cracked. Memory chips (Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix) fell into a bear market, down more than 20% from their highs, even as Samsung posted record profits. A DeepSeek in-house chip report and oil spiking on Iran did the rest. Let's dig in 👇

📊 Quick Recap — What Moved & Why

🇺🇸 US — The AI Trade Gets Its First Real Scare

🔑 Key Event: Risk-off rotation out of AI names. 📉 Nasdaq -1.16% to 25,819. S&P 500 -0.45% to 7,504. Dow eased to 52,925 from Monday's record. The trigger was twofold: Samsung's record results still couldn't lift chips, and a Reuters report that China's DeepSeek is building its own AI inference chip to cut reliance on Nvidia and Huawei spooked the whole complex. The semis ETF (SMH) fell over 3%.

👀 Other to Watch

Memory into a bear market → Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix and the Roundhill Memory ETF are all down 20%+ from recent highs. Micron closed -4.7%; the chip group has shed roughly $1.5T in market value since June 25.
Intel & Applied Materials -10%, AMD -8%, SanDisk -8% → the selloff was broad, not just memory.
Rivian (RIVN) -18% → its worst day since 2024, after launching a 75M-share offering to raise ~$1.5B for a DOE loan requirement. Dilution fear swamped an above-consensus Q2 revenue guide.
SpaceX (SPCX) → first day in the Nasdaq-100; despite ~$4.3B of expected passive buying, it only edged up ~1% to $158.77, still well below its IPO-week highs. Classic buy-the-rumor.
Microsoft (MSFT) → started replacing OpenAI and Anthropic models with its own MAI models in Excel and Outlook to cut AI costs. Suleyman: the goal is to reduce and ultimately eliminate that spend.

@NewUser_zS0M8w : "SpaceX officially joins Nasdaq and the stock still trades about 15% from its opening IPO price. However, I do not think this is impressive given how much resources and hype were given to the company."

🇸🇬 Singapore — STI Prints Another Record, Bucking the Rout

🔑 Key Event: While Wall Street's chip trade cracked, STI closed at 5,342.24 (+1.57%), a fresh all-time high, one of 2026's best-performing markets. The "slow and steady" defensive profile (banks, REITs, yield) is exactly what global investors want during an AI-trade wobble.

👀 Other to Watch

Retail sales → May grew just +3.0% YoY, slowing from April's 5.4%, the weakest since January; food/alcohol and department stores fell.
Keppel (BN4) & Sembcorp (U96) → signed MOUs with Indonesia's Danantara to explore importing low-carbon electricity, part of a cross-border plan for 3.4GW+ by 2035.
S-REITs → trading around 0.9x book with ~6.2% FY26 yields despite stable occupancy, per DBS; the discount is rate-driven, not asset weakness.
UOB (U11) tied up with ANTA for cardholder perks; Boustead (F9D) bought 60% of med-tech UroMedTech for S$6M.

@NewUser_oPJWOU : "STI continues to climb strongly, outperforming some others like South Korea and Japan. Turns out the 'slow n steady' SG market is now gaining traction and actually delivering decent capital returns for safe investors."

@NoTimeCountMoney : "My Singapore portfolio has officially flipped into a sea of green. My top performer, SingTel (Z74), remains incredibly strong at +4.46%. Seeing all 5 counters completely wipe out their paper losses makes for an excellent start to the week."

🇭🇰 HK/China — Dragged by the Regional Chip Rout

🔑 Key Event: HSI closed -0.51% at 23,497, pressured as the Kospi tech selloff (Samsung and SK Hynix both down heavily) rattled regional sentiment. The DeepSeek chip report cuts both ways for China names: bullish for domestic self-sufficiency, bearish for anyone selling to the AI supply chain.

👀 Other to Watch

Samsung Electronics (005930.KR) → began mass-producing its PM1763 PCIe 6.0 SSD for Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform, a reminder the AI hardware buildout keeps rolling even as the stocks correct.

🌍 Other

🛢️ Oil spikes on Iran → the US struck Iranian targets and revoked the waiver allowing Iranian oil sales after tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent +3.0% to $74.16, WTI +2.8% to $70.44 (both up over 5% intraday post-settlement). Energy was the day's only green sector.
🏛️ Fed → June FOMC minutes land tomorrow (Jul 9), the next read on how hawkish the Warsh Fed really is.

📅 Key Events Tonight / This Week

🇺🇸 June FOMC minutes · Thu Jul 9
🇺🇸 SK Hynix (SKHY) Nasdaq debut · Fri Jul 10

💬 Memory chips just fell into a bear market even as Samsung printed record profits. Is this the AI trade finally topping out, or the dip long-term believers have been waiting for?

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🚫 No duplicates · ⏰ Deadline: July 8, 2026, 11:59 PM SGT

Not investment advice, just market talk 🙏