U.S. Stock Market Preshow News: South Korean President Signs Major Deal in the U.S., NVIDIA Issues Price Hike Notice, Apple Pressures Panel Suppliers

BlockBeats News, July 24th, a summary of key pre-market news in the US stock market:

1. NVIDIA has notified its board partners of a price increase, which involves GDDR6 and GDDR7 memory kits. It is reported that when NVIDIA sells products to board partners, the GPU chip and VRAM chips are bundled together to form kits for supply. Partners are then responsible for installing these chips on their own designed PCBs (printed circuit boards) to produce custom graphics cards.

2. Due to the continuous surge in memory chip prices increasing the overall cost of iPhones, Apple is pressuring its upstream supply chain to significantly lower OLED screen prices with its display panel suppliers.

3. Intel's revenue for the second quarter of 2026, reported after the market close on Thursday, exceeded analysts' expectations by nearly 12%, with quarterly revenue growth accelerating to 25% year-on-year, marking the strongest quarterly revenue growth rate in nearly fifteen years. The revenue from data center-related businesses is expected to grow by almost 60% year-on-year, more than twice the overall revenue growth rate. Intel's revenue guidance for the third quarter maintains double-digit growth, with a guidance range equivalent to a year-on-year growth of over 15% to nearly 23%, all of which are higher than analysts' expectations. Based on the midpoint of the range, Intel expects third-quarter revenue to be around $16.3 billion, over 8% higher than the market expectations and slightly higher than the actual revenue for the second quarter.

4. Kim Yong-beom, head of the South Korean presidential policy office, stated that during South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's visit to Silicon Valley, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will sign significant agreements with major US tech companies involving "huge" amounts of funding. These agreements may include new long-term memory chip supply agreements, strategic cooperative investment partnerships, and memorandums of understanding. He did not disclose a specific amount.

5. The long-running "century divorce case" between South Korea's SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and his ex-wife Roh Soo-hyun (the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo) has received the latest judgment. The court has ruled that Chey Tae-won must pay his ex-wife 944 billion Korean won (approximately $644 million / 4.37 billion RMB) in cash as part of the property division. The market generally expects that this ruling will have a limited substantial impact on SK hynix's stock price.

6. The three storage giants SK hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Kioxia will announce their earnings next week. SK hynix is set to release its second-quarter financial report on Wednesday, July 29th. Visible ALPHA's consensus expectations indicate that SK hynix is expected to once again deliver an outstanding quarterly performance.

Samsung Electronics will officially announce the full second-quarter earnings report on Thursday, July 30. Previously, on July 7, Samsung released preliminary performance data. Revenue in the second quarter increased by 129% year-on-year, reaching 171 trillion Korean won (approximately $116.6 billion); operating profit for the same period was 89.4 trillion Korean won (approximately $58.4 billion), a staggering 18-fold increase year-on-year, setting a record for the highest quarterly profit in history.

Armadillo is set to release its first-quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings report on Friday, July 31, with market expectations of a potential doubling of quarterly profits compared to the previous quarter.

7. Oracle has secured a $7 billion U.S. Department of Defense software contract, causing its pre-market trading to surge by nearly 2%.

8. Amazon has updated the Alexa+ feature, further enhancing its next-generation AI assistant capabilities. Alexa+ supports natural conversations, information recall, and task execution, assisting users in managing schedules, summarizing emails, generating podcasts, controlling smart homes, as well as completing tasks such as shopping, restaurant reservations, and ride-hailing.

9. NVIDIA has signed a $1.5 billion agreement with Amkor Technology (AMKR) to support the latter in upgrading its chip packaging facilities and expanding its semiconductor industry presence in the United States. The agreement involves a prepayment that will help Amkor enhance its manufacturing capabilities in Arizona. Both companies stated that this collaboration will focus on chip packaging and testing technologies in the field of artificial intelligence.