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Asia Sells the Chip Bounce: Kospi −4.3%, Amazon +5%

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

Monday ended the chip index's losing streak at +1.6%, but the gain faded into the close and QQQ stopped at 718.36, under 720 — the profit-taking read from Monday's Midday 10. Amazon +5% on Morgan Stanley's 'Top Pick'. TSMC's earnings window closes tonight.

In this edition

QQQ ACN AMZN NVDA MMM SOXX SMH IGV

The Morning 10 Tue, Oct 20, 2026 ~90 seconds 08:00 CET

The ten points

Monday was the day the chip sell-off had to answer three questions, and it answered none of them cleanly. The Philadelphia chip index rose 1.6% to 11,316 — the eight-day losing streak is over — but it was up 2.5% at midday and gave a third of the gain back into the close. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ rose 1.2% to 718.36 and stopped under 720, well below the broken support line at 728.95. Accenture, the test for the AI-users trade, added 3.2% to 236.93 and held. Monday's Midday 10 called the close in advance: profit-taking into the bell, lower tomorrow.

Asia is delivering the second half this morning. The Kospi fell more than 4% in afternoon trade to about 5,520, giving back Monday's gain and more; SK Hynix lost 5.3% and Samsung 3.9% as doubts about AI spending returned, as reported by Investing.com. Seoul has now lost 13.5% in six sessions. The Nikkei fell 1.4%, Taiwan 1.3%, and Hong Kong reopened from its holiday 1.2% lower. Nasdaq futures trade 0.3% below Monday's settle.

The one unambiguous buy of the session was Amazon: +5.0% to 262.45, leading the Dow, after Morgan Stanley named it a 'Top Pick' with a $350 target — and after Amazon released a tool that aims straight at Nvidia's software moat. TSMC's Print Record window closes at tonight's US close, 0.5% below its entry after a record quarter.

  1. Monday's three tests — the streak ended, the 720 line held the price back, the gain faded
  2. Asia — Seoul sells the bounce: Kospi −4.3%, SK Hynix −5.3%, Samsung −3.9%
  3. Amazon — +5.0% to 262.45: a 'Top Pick' call, a $350 target, and a tool aimed at Nvidia's moat
  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. 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. Volatility — VIX falls 7.7% to 18.44 while Asia sells; the fear gauge and the tape disagree
  7. Support-confluence scanner — five names on multiple floors at once: Viasat, Nordea, GE Vernova among them
  8. TSMC — the window closes tonight, 0.5% under its entry; ASML scored flat Monday
  9. Calendar — German ZEW this morning, US housing starts at 12:30 UTC; Tesla, Meta, IBM, SAP and Lam Research print Wednesday
  10. Outside view — Gene Munster, Deepwater: AI infrastructure enters a digestion phase

  1. Monday's three tests — the streak ended, the 720 line held the price back, the gain faded

    Structure

    QQQACN

    What
    We set three measures for Monday. One: the chip index ends a day higher — it did, +1.6% to 11,316, the first green close after eight losing days. Two: QQQ closes back above 720 — it did not; it rose 1.2% to 718.36 and stopped 10.59 below the broken support line at 728.95. Three: Accenture holds its AI-users gain — it did, +3.2% to 236.93. The shape of the day mattered as much as the closes. The chip index was up 2.5% at midday and faded to +1.6% by the bell — Monday's Midday 10 named it as it happened: profit-taking into the close, lower tomorrow. The first half proved right by four o'clock; Asia is working on the second half this morning.
    If
    QQQ gives back Monday's gain at today's open — futures point that way
    Why
    a bounce that fades into its own close has sellers sitting above it; the broken line at 728.95 stays resistance until it is won back, and the September low at 704.54 remains the floor that matters
    Then
    the QQQ page carries the chart and the levels

    Open the detail →

  2. Asia — Seoul sells the bounce: Kospi −4.3%, SK Hynix −5.3%, Samsung −3.9%

    Context
    What
    The Kospi fell more than 4% in Tuesday afternoon trade to about 5,520, erasing Monday's gain and more. SK Hynix lost 5.3% to 1.209 million won, near its lowest level since April, and Samsung Electronics fell 3.9% to 209,500 won, as doubts about AI spending returned to the market that is most exposed to it, as reported by Investing.com. The Kospi has fallen 13.5% in six sessions. Tokyo followed at half the pace: the Nikkei lost 1.4% to about 64,020, with SoftBank down more than 3%. Taiwan's Taiex fell 1.3%; Hong Kong, closed Monday for a holiday, reopened 1.2% lower. Nasdaq futures trade 0.3% under Monday's settle, S&P futures flat, gold at $4,154 and the dollar at 158.1 yen.
    If
    Seoul closes at its lows and the Korean memory ADRs open New York accordingly
    Why
    Korean memory is the most crowded corner of the AI build-out; when a US bounce is sold first in Seoul, the US open usually inherits the direction
    Then
    Rubin 100 holds SK Hynix, Samsung and the rest of the memory layer

    Open the detail →

  3. AI Handoff Board Nine ratios of our own indices tracking whether AI leadership is moving from build to operate to use. Open the board →

  4. Amazon — +5.0% to 262.45: a 'Top Pick' call, a $350 target, and a tool aimed at Nvidia's moat

    Structure

    AMZNNVDAMMM

    What
    Amazon led the Dow with a 5.0% gain to 262.45 after Morgan Stanley named it a 'Top Pick' with a $350 price target, arguing the market underprices the AI upside at its cloud arm AWS, as reported. 3M rose too after expanding a data-centre materials deal with Amazon. The same day Amazon released TorchNeuron, a tool that lets standard PyTorch AI code run on its own Trainium chips — described in Monday's coverage as its biggest shot yet at Nvidia's software moat, the CUDA platform that keeps AI developers on Nvidia hardware. Nvidia still rose 1.4% to 217.09, but the order of the day was clear: the buyer of chips gained three and a half times as much as the seller.
    If
    Amazon holds the gain while the chip complex trades lower this week
    Why
    a cloud company that makes its own chips cheap and easy enough to use is the first real test of the assumption that the AI build-out money must flow through Nvidia; the market paid for that option on Monday
    Then
    the Amazon page carries the chart and the scores

    Open the detail →

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C · point 11 · members

Today in line 11: what a one-day bounce that fades is worth, why Seoul is the tell for the chip trade, and the two prices that decide whether this week turns.

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