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A blockbuster earnings season doesn’t make every technology giant a strong stock. Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). South Korea’s stock market came to a screeching halt this morning. After the benchmark KOSPI index plunged more than 8%, a marketwide circuit breaker automatically halted trading for 20 minutes to prevent the selloff from spiraling. But when trading resumed, so did the selling. By the closing bell, the KOSPI had plummeted 10.8%. And two stocks were at the center of the storm. Samsung Electronics sank 13.3%, while SK Hynix tumbled 14.7%. Now, to unfamiliar American investors…

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). The AI trade goes deep in the red… Wednesday’s presser with no map… Thursday’s number Warsh actually watches… and the calendar that decides everything in September As I write on Tuesday morning, the AI trade is deep in the red, with some semiconductor stocks down double digits. While it’s tempting to point to a single headline, a variety of dynamics are colliding at once. South Korea’s tech-heavy ⁠KOSPI Composite Index crashed about 11% last night on bubble fears… this is normal mean-reversion after the near-vertical runup that the AI…

Without the support of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, it’s been a lethargic year in terms of performance by municipal bonds and the related ETFs, but that doesn’t mean advisors and fixed income investors should ignore this bond segment. In fact, the current municipal bond environment may be ripe for active management. It indicates that market participants may want to evaluate ETFs such as the ALPS Intermediate Municipal Bond ETF (MNBD). MNBD, which turned four years old in May, carries a trailing 12-month yield of 3.31%. That’s all the more attractive when considering the low credit risk associated with…

Key PointsQualcomm reports fiscal third-quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday, July 29.Handset revenue fell 13% last quarter while automotive revenue grew 38% to a record.The consensus rating on the stock is hold, yet the average price target sits about 36% above the current price.10 stocks we like better than Qualcomm ›Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) trades at $162.88 as of this writing, about 37% below its 52-week high of $259.92. The 36 analysts covering the chipmaker rate it, on average, a hold. Yet those same analysts carry an average price target of $221.23, about 36% above the stock.What gives? In…

Explosive tech growth — driven by AI hyperscalers and the Magnificent Seven — has caused major market cap-weighted funds to become heavily concentrated.The 10 largest companies now make up 36% of the S&P 500 and 46% of the Nasdaq-100.With this historically high concentration risk, buying traditional S&P 500 funds is no longer a truly balanced approach. From a young age, we’re taught to not put all of our eggs in one basket because it’s risky. And for decades, investors had a simple fix: They could diversify their portfolios via low-cost index funds that spread dollars across hundreds or thousands of…

AnaptysBio: The Royalty Waterfall Is About To Reverse

Key insight: Visa’s earnings slightly beat analyst expectations as the card network announced layoffs. What’s at stake: The credit card company said AI has enabled it to develop products and technology faster, and to restructure how it builds new products. Expert quote: “AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa,”— CEO Ryan McInerneyShortly after American Express said AI-related job reductions would come largely through attrition, Visa made a more direct tie between artificial intelligence and downsizing its workforce. Processing ContentVisa will lay off 7% of its workforce, cutting about 2,600 jobs,…

My view on stablecoins has always been this: they’re crypto, stripped of speculation.  Remove the trading, the moonshots, the get-rich-quick schemes, and what you’re left with is a genuinely novel form of payments infrastructure: a new primitive for moving value that happens to be fast, programmable, and borderless. However, just because stablecoins have been stripped of speculative trading does not mean that they are free from other forms of speculation.  Crypto advocates love to speculate on the disruptive potential of stablecoins. And their favorite target is the card networks. Stablecoins, the story goes, are going to kill Visa and Mastercard;…

Key TakeawaysIndia’s Narcotics Control Bureau dismantled the alleged Team Kalki darknet drug network.Binance and DSCI provided wallet tracking and blockchain analytics that helped investigators freeze crypto assets.The case shows how public transaction records can expose financial trails linked to encrypted criminal networks. Blockchain Left a Trail Despite the Network’s Secrecy A darknet drug syndicate allegedly used cryptocurrency, encrypted messaging platforms and anonymous online marketplaces to hide its activities across India. But investigators said its blockchain activity exposed a financial trail. Crypto exchange Binance revealed details of the investigation on July 22, describing how its investigations team worked with India’s Narcotics…

In brief The United States announced a ceasefire with Iran yesterday, but markets aren’t optimistic it will last. The odds that the ceasefire lasts a continuous 14 days dumped by 10% on Polymarket today. The U.S. and Iran had held fire for a third day by Monday, but President Trump warned military action could resume if diplomacy fails. The United States seems to have announced a ceasefire yesterday on its offensive actions against Iran. But prediction markets are not too optimistic about how long that peace will last.A Polymarket contract requiring a continuous 14-day period without a U.S. airstrike or…