Pre-market Stock News Recap: 'The Big Short' Investor Michael Burry Increases Bearish Bets on Micron and Nvidia, Samsung Electronics Executive Invests 700 Million Korean Won to Buy More Company Shares
BlockBeats News, July 31, important pre-market news on the US stock market:
1. "The Big Short" prototype Michael Burry has further increased his short position in Micron Technology (MU), with an average position of about $880; at the same time, he continues to add to his short exposure to NVIDIA (NVDA) and has increased his short position in the Semiconductor ETF SOXX, with an average price of about $506.
2. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tesla advisors have started discussing a spin-off plan to divest the China business. This arrangement is intended to pave the way for a potential SpaceX merger. In response to this, Tesla's China team told reporters that this is "fake news."
3. The hedge fund Situational Awareness, founded by the "AI Stock God" Leopold Aschenbrenner, suffered a major loss in the AI stock slump in July, with a net asset value drop of about 67% during the month. As related positions sharply retreated, the fund was forced to sell off most of its stock positions to raise cash to meet additional margin calls from lending institutions. A significant portion of the positions were taken over by Citadel, owned by Ken Griffin. Leopold stated that the fund will continue to operate and will not exit the public equities market, learning from this loss.
4. Amazon's second-quarter cloud computing sales rose 37% year-over-year to $42.2 billion, exceeding expectations, with the stock price rising more than 10% in pre-market trading. The company expects capital expenditures of $200 billion this year, mainly for AI and data centers.
5. Apple released its third-quarter earnings report. The company's revenue of $109.4 billion exceeded expectations, with a year-over-year growth of about 16%. iPhone and Mac sales were strong, but due to a memory shortage, the fourth-quarter revenue guidance was lower than expected, and revenue from China and services fell short of expectations, causing the stock price to drop more than 8% in pre-market trading.
6. Strategy reported an $8.2 billion loss in the second quarter, compared to a $10 billion profit in the same period last year. The loss was mainly due to unrealized mark-to-market losses on its Bitcoin holdings. The Strategy management has explicitly made driving the preferred stock price of STRC back to par value a top priority.
7. In the first quarter, Kamen Rider's net profit was ¥842.17 billion, compared to ¥18.28 billion in the same period last year, with the market estimating ¥973.81 billion. The net profit fell short of market expectations, and Kamen Rider's ADR fell nearly 6% in pre-market trading.
8. Shanghai Aishengna has been confirmed as the manufacturer of China's first domestically produced immersion DUV chip manufacturing tool. The company plans to produce about 5 units in 2026 and about 20 units in 2027, delivering to SMIC, Huahong, and Changxin.
9. Amid recent significant volatility in Samsung Electronics' stock price, Samsung Electronics' DX division President and Co-CEO Lu Taiwen purchased approximately 700 million Korean won worth of company stock.
10. South Korea's Doosan Group holding company, "Doosan," disclosed on the 31st that it has signed a share purchase agreement with SK Group to acquire 70.6% of SK Siltron's shares, with the transaction amounting to 2.3 trillion Korean won.
11. On the first day of the South Korean financial regulatory authority's implementation of restrictions on individual stock leveraged ETFs, the trading volume of related products plummeted to one-fourth of the previous day's level. Data from the Korea Exchange (KRX) today on individual stock leveraged ETF trading showed that on the first day of the new regulations, the total trading volume of 16 individual stock leveraged and inverse ETFs was 3.3071 trillion Korean won. This number represents a significant 75.3% decrease from the previous day's volume of 12.4485 trillion Korean won.
