Posts are going out from Paris the next three weeks so they will be later than usual if you are in Asia.
I’ll be in New York from 7 to 14 September to meet the Funda team there and some of you. Please reach out if you’d like to meet.
We have been more cautious about the market in recent weeks, but as we note below, there are significant bright spots:
Nand pricing is rebounding.
The Koreans are returning capital.
Alibaba made numerous helpful comments on ROI and AI investment payback.
Finally, Funda is working on a study of enterprise adoption of AI. This is going to be important as we head into the tail end of this year.
NAND
BofA reporting that NAND wafer prices “rebounded sharply” in early August.
Hearing this being attributed to Vera Rubin mass production ramping up.
Trendforce post on X on the same new has a bearish tilt, saying “overall transaction momentum [in consumer] continues to wither”:
The spot market exhibited a visible vertical consolidation recently still attributed to the overall sluggish consumer demand, and overall transaction momentum continues to wither without sizable improvement to the prospect of the end sector, despite some of the suppliers willing to compromise on prices. Spot prices of 512Gb TLC wafers rose by 0.39% this week (Aug.17), arriving at US$21.208.
An earlier post from 30 July describes Agentic AI as a force that could “significantly increase demand for high-speed SSDs, helping absorb incremental supply” and bring it into “equilibrium”.
Trendforce does not appear to treat AI driven demand as the base case.
Hynix: MS says on track to complete buyback in 37 days
Hynix registered for 650k shrs buyback (12% ADV) today compared to 650k (100% filled) yesterday or 2.7% of the total done i.e. on track to complete the full size 24m shares in 37 days (by Oct 15) at this pace. Separately, US ADR +4.4% (premium 33% or flat DoD).
Samsung: Board meeting to approve shareholder return program expected today (Nikkei)
South Korean semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics is expected to unveil a shareholder return program worth a total of 100 trillion won ($72 billion), Nikkei has learned.
According to sources, Samsung is expected to announce its plan following a board meeting on Friday. The program would mark the largest-ever shareholder return in South Korea.
Alibaba: Comments on ROI and Payback
Some helpful comments from Alibaba for the AI trade: