Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi: Will provide funds for temporary tax cut without resorting to issuing government bonds, in order to ensure market confidence. (Jinshi)

Samsung Electronics disclosed on July 30 that it will invest a total of 800 billion KRW in semiconductor startups and the DX division's potential technology reserves. The investment will be used for equity investments in domestic and international semiconductor startups, fostering technology and business partnerships. Specifically, Samsung Electronics will join the new technology business investment portfolio SVIC No. 82 established by Samsung Venture Investment, contributing 505 billion KRW, while Samsung Venture Investment will contribute 5 billion KRW. This portfolio is scheduled to be joined next month, with a term of 13 years, and payments will be made in installments as investment projects occur. Additionally, Samsung Electronics will join the new technology business investment portfolio SVIC No. 83 established by Samsung Venture Investment, contributing 303 billion KRW, while Samsung Venture Investment will contribute 3 billion KRW. This portfolio is intended for discovering future technologies for the DX division and strengthening business competitiveness, with a term of 10 years, and payments will be made in installments as investment projects occur.

On July 30, Amazon (AMZN.US) rose 2.5% in pre-market trading. In terms of news, Amazon is set to release its second-quarter results after the U.S. market closes on July 30 (Beijing time July 31). The market generally expects a strong performance for the quarter. Analysts forecast revenue of approximately $196.9 billion, up 17% year-over-year, and earnings per share (EPS) of $1.82, up about 37.76% year-over-year. Solid earnings recovery serves as a key foundation for the stock price. Whether its cloud computing business (AWS) can accelerate growth is the biggest highlight of this earnings report and is also seen as a critical factor affecting the stock price.

A report from Goldman Sachs on July 30 shows that equity hedge funds focused on the Asian market are facing their largest single-month drawdown on record, as a broad sell-off in AI concept stocks wiped out most of the gains from previous concentrated bets on the sector. According to Goldman Sachs, as of July 28, fundamental long-short equity hedge funds focusing on Asia fell an average of 18.6% this month. In the first half of the year, these funds were among the best-performing globally due to early bets on AI hardware leaders, including South Korean chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. Some funds posted returns of over 100% at one point. However, the market has now undergone a sharp reversal. Goldman Sachs noted that since the year-to-date return peaked at 40% on July 22, these funds have given back 21 percentage points of their year-to-date gains. The bank pointed out that the crowded AI trades that drove significant gains in the first half are now becoming the main factor behind the unusually large drawdown this month. Specifically, funds with higher exposure to AI themes suffered greater losses. Amid the market turmoil, hedge funds have been taking profits and reducing risk. According to Goldman Sachs data, as of July 27, Asian hedge funds have reduced exposure for eight consecutive trading days, with the five-day cumulative reduction in gross exposure hitting a record high.

On July 30, according to Yonhap News, the Korea Exchange conducted an internal review on July 29 of the technical feasibility and system requirements for temporarily banning short selling and reducing the price limit (currently 30%), in response to recent severe volatility in the stock market. A person familiar with the matter said, "It only confirmed technical feasibility," emphasizing that it was not a step toward implementation, but rather a review among available contingency measures. Recently, the Korean stock market has been in a sustained decline, aggravating losses for individual investors. During a meeting of the National Assembly's Steering Committee, multiple lawmakers urged authorities to consider a temporary ban on short selling and restarting the securities market stabilization fund. A national petition to suspend short selling garnered over 10,000 approvals within two days of its public release. However, banning short selling conflicts with South Korea's goal of being included in the MSCI Developed Markets Index, as a previous 17-month short selling ban from November 2023 to March 2025 led MSCI to downgrade South Korea's market accessibility rating. The Korea Exchange officially stated that it had not received any related request from the government and had not formally discussed a short selling ban.

On July 30, US stock storage concept stocks broadly declined in pre-market trading. Among them, SK Hynix fell over 4%, Micron Technology fell nearly 2%, SanDisk fell 1%; Silicon Motion Technology surged over 9%.

On July 30, Arm's US stock fell over 6% in pre-market trading to $210. On the news, ARM reported its first-quarter results for fiscal year 2027 ending June 30. Quarterly revenue increased 22% year-on-year to $1.289 billion, above analysts' expectations of $1.26 billion; adjusted operating profit rose 29% year-on-year to $531 million, and adjusted earnings per share were $0.45, also better than the market expectation of $0.40. However, the company forecast second-quarter revenue of $1.38 billion, missing the market's most optimistic expectations, with adjusted earnings per share guidance of 47 cents. In addition, the company stated on the analyst conference call that 'royalty revenue will decline slightly, and there are signs of weakness in the smartphone business.'

On July 30, Qualcomm fell 5.76% pre-market to $146.717. The company reported its Q3 fiscal 2026 quarterly results. Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue was $9.95 billion, down 4% year-over-year, beating Wall Street's previous expectations of $9.7 billion. Net profit was $2 billion, down 25% year-over-year. For Q4, Qualcomm provided revenue guidance of $9.7 billion to $10.5 billion, roughly in line with the analyst consensus estimate of $10 billion.

Meta Platforms (META.O) fell 8.3% in pre-market trading, with Q2 free cash flow dropping 91%. Microsoft (MSFT.O) rose 7% in pre-market trading, as its fourth-quarter cloud revenue growth exceeded market expectations. Qualcomm (QCOM.O) fell 5.7% in pre-market trading, and Arm (ARM.O) fell 7.2%. (Jinshi)

July 30 news: US memory concept stocks are declining in pre-market trading. Micron Technology (MU.O) fell 2.6%, SK Hynix (SKHY.O) fell 4.4%, Western Digital (WDC.O) fell 1.2%, SanDisk (SNDK.O) fell 1.5%, and Seagate Technology (STX.O) fell 0.1%. (Jin Shi)