US stocks sold off on, led by chips. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% on the week, the Nasdaq 2.9% and the Dow 0.9%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) dropped almost 9%, its third weekly decline in four weeks, and the SOX sits roughly 18–20% below its June highs. Among the reasons, Beijing-based Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model that reportedly matched or outperformed several leading US models, trailing only Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6. Investors read it as a second "DeepSeek moment," reviving doubts about US AI capex and chip valuations. The Tech rout spread across Asia with both Japan and Korea momentum unwinding. In Korea, foreign selling has left the market dependent on retail and single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to Samsung and SK Hynix, which turn falling prices into forced selling. Capital is rotating out of 1H winners (Kospi +88% YTD at its peak) toward laggards. Meanwhile, crude oil climbed on renewed US–Iran fighting and Hormuz disruption threats, with WTI back near $79. On the macro side, US June CPI fell 0.4% the biggest monthly drop since April 2020 cutting the annual rate to 3.5% from 4.2%, and PPI unexpectedly fell 0.3%. The soft data brought relief at the front end of US Treasuries curve 2-year yields fell as July hike odds collapsed from 42% to 17% but the 10-year finished the week little changed near 4.56% as oil and Hormuz capped the rally. The dollar was choppy this week but ended lower. Gold struggled to maintain $4000.¨
Have a great weekend
Charles & Syz Lab Research