☕️ [Task Coins Giveaway] Daily Market Talk — Chips Shrug Off the War Scare

Two days after falling into a bear market, chips came roaring back. Semiconductors jumped 3%+ and the Nasdaq rose even as the US kept striking Iran. SK Hynix lists in the US today in what may be the second-largest IPO ever, and China cleared its giants to buy Nvidia H200s. Let's dig in 👇

📊 Quick Recap — What Moved & Why

🇺🇸 US — Risk-On Returns, Chips Lead

🔑 Key Event: Markets shrugged off the geopolitics. 📈 Nasdaq +1.30% to 26,207, S&P 500 +0.81% to 7,544, Dow +0.27% to 52,487. Semiconductors led the bounce (SOXX +5%), with Micron +4.5%, SanDisk +7.6% and AMD +7.2%, helped by Micron's US investment plans and China clearing Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek to buy a limited batch of Nvidia H200 chips (for training only). VIX fell hard and oil pulled back.

👀 Other to Watch

• SK Hynix (SKHY) → lists in the US today, raising about 45.45 trillion won (~$29.7B), its book more than 7x oversubscribed. That ranks second only to SpaceX among US IPOs, ahead of Alibaba. Temporary "when-issued" trading starts today under SKHYV; regular SKHY trading begins Monday.
• Meta (META) +4.7% → Zuckerberg pushed back on "overbuilt" compute fears; a leaked memo showed plans to nearly double compute to 14 gigawatts next year, with a custom AI chip entering production in September.
• Optical names ripped → on that Meta memo: Lumentum +12% to $794, Applied Optoelectronics +10%, Corning +2.4%. The picks-and-shovels AI trade is back in favor.
• Costco (COST) -4.5% → June comparable sales cooled to 8.8% from May's 12.5%; a "good but not great" print triggered profit-taking. Pepsi rose on an earnings beat.

@Horsey Meow : "Micron guess later prices will go up again after pullback so much last session. Let's see! May buy the dip!"

🇭🇰 HK/China — ADRs Up, but HK Cash Slips

🔑 Key Event: A split picture. US-listed China names extended their run (the CQQQ ETF up around 4%, Alibaba adding to the prior day's surge on H200 access and cloud optimism), but HK's Hang Seng closed -0.7% at 24,030 as local tech gave back gains (Tencent, Meituan, Kuaishou all lower). Watch whether the ADR strength pulls HK back up.

👀 Other to Watch

• Nvidia H200 to China → approvals reportedly cover fewer than 200,000 chips, training-use only, with Beijing still pushing domestic chips for inference. A limited but symbolic thaw.

🇸🇬 Singapore — Record Highs and a Record Temasek

🔑 Key Event: STI extended its rally above 5,400, powered by the banks (UOB led). The bigger headline: Temasek's portfolio hit a record S$518B (up S$49B), with a one-year total shareholder return of 10.5%, driven by its listed Singapore holdings.

👀 Other to Watch

• SGX (S68) → divested Scientific Beta to STOXX for about EUR 23M (~S$34M), refocusing on its securities, derivatives and data businesses after the unit posted a loss.
• Del Monte Pacific (D03) → flagged to SGX on going-concern queries after a US$589.9M net capital deficit, though its Philippine unit stayed profitable.
• 🏠 Prime home sales hit S$1.1B in H1, supported by new citizens and PRs; average prime prices up 8.3%.

@Dividends Lover : "One quick way to get rich or at least passive income rich is to buy all 3 stocks of our local banks. I have all 3, and my unrealised gain is 6 digits. That's investment in easy mode."

@NewUser_oPJWOU : "The SG market ripped as banks push even higher, with UOB leading the way surprisingly with a 3% gain. Although the local market looks strong versus the rest of Asia, I expect it to tone down and retrace a bit."

🌍 Other

• 🛢️ Iran / oil → the US kept up strikes and Trump said the interim Iran deal is "over," but oil eased off its highs and equities pushed through the risk anyway. Traffic through Hormuz has dropped sharply, keeping fuel prices elevated.
• 🏦 Fed → announced the leadership of five reform working groups, drawing in a former central banker, a Silicon Valley AI figure and a Nobel laureate, a sign of how much the Warsh Fed wants to rethink its playbook.

📅 Key Events Tonight / This Week

• 🇺🇸 SK Hynix "when-issued" (SKHYV) debut trades tonight

💬 Chips just roared back from a bear market in two days while the US was still bombing Iran. Is this the resilient AI trade proving the dip was a gift, or a relief rally running ahead of the risks?

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🚫 No duplicates · ⏰ Deadline: July 10, 2026, 11:59 PM SGT

Not investment advice, just market talk 🙏