Chips — one day of bounce, then Asia sells it: Kospi −4.3%, SK Hynix −5.3%, Nasdaq futures lower

The Morning 10

Chips — one day of bounce, then Asia sells it: Kospi −4.3%, SK Hynix −5.3%, Nasdaq futures lower

1. 1 Monday's three tests — the streak ended, the 720 line held the price back, the gain faded
2. 2 Asia — Seoul sells the bounce: Kospi −4.3%, SK Hynix −5.3%, Samsung −3.9%
3. 3 Amazon — +5.0% to 262.45: a 'Top Pick' call, a $350 target, and a tool aimed at Nvidia's moat
4. 4 Our AI indices — build-out −8.2% on the week, running costs bounce +1.6% Monday; the products index sits flat through the storm
5. 5 The bounce by layer — memory ETF +4.1%, cloud +2.0%, chips +1.7%, software +1.6%: everything rose, memory led, and memory is what Asia is selling
6. 6 Volatility — VIX falls 7.7% to 18.44 while Asia sells; the fear gauge and the tape disagree
7. 7 Support-confluence scanner — five names on multiple floors at once: Viasat, Nordea, GE Vernova among them
8. 8 TSMC — the window closes tonight, 0.5% under its entry; ASML scored flat Monday
9. 9 Calendar — German ZEW this morning, US housing starts at 12:30 UTC; Tesla, Meta, IBM, SAP and Lam Research print Wednesday
10. 10 Outside view — Gene Munster, Deepwater: AI infrastructure enters a digestion phase

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Daily Pulse — Korea — Too Far Up, Now Too Far Down

Seoul fell for the sixth session in a row. The Kospi lost 3.7% to 5,552.74 on Tuesday — 13.0% in six days — with SK Hynix down 4.2% and Samsung 3.0%, as doubts about AI spending returned, as reported by Investing.com. Korea is where the AI memory trade was priced most aggressively, so Korea is where it is being repriced first.

The full Pulse →

On the tape

• Asia close: Nikkei -1.18%, KOSPI -4.27% — KOSPI -4.3% drags Asia