Samsung's Chips Business Beats Estimates After Stockpiling Push
The semiconductor business reported operating income of 1.1 trillion won ($767 million) in the March quarter. The unit's revenue totaled 25.1 trillion won, in line with the average estimate for 25 trillion won.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China's $733 Billion Warning: Why Investors Can't Ignore This Red Flag
China just posted a record-breaking 5.25 trillion yuan ($733 billion) budget deficit for the first half of the yeara 45% jump from the same period in 2024. Behind that number? A government pulling every fiscal lever it can to keep growth on track as exports to the US take a hit. While American tariffs remain elevatedroughly 30 percentage points higher than a year agoBeijing has doubled down on infrastructure and domestic spending to compensate for weakening external demand and a bruised property sector. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 9 Warning Signs with MSTR. So far, that strategy has bought time. GDP grew 5.3% in the first six months, running ahead of the government's full-year target. But under the surface, cracks are showing. Fiscal revenue fell 0.6% year-on-year, tax collections dropped 1.2%, and land salesa key source of fundingslipped another 6.5%. Meanwhile, total government spending rose 9% to nearly 19 trillion yuan, driven by capital-heavy projects and social support. For investors, that paints a mixed picture: growth is holding up, but the cost is rising fast. All eyes now turn to two events on the horizon: a high-level economic policy meeting in Beijing and fresh trade negotiations between Chinese and US officials. What happens next could shape the outlook not just for China's fiscal stance, but for any company exposed to cross-border flowsparticularly those like Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), which depend on both Chinese consumers and manufacturing capacity. If tariffs rise or growth slows, earnings leverage across sectors could swing hard in either direction. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Business Insider
17 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Why a 'garbage rally' powered by junk stocks could explain quant hedge funds' no good, very bad summer
As the fundamental investing world marvels at another potential bubble made up of meme stocks and retail traders, quant hedge funds are trying to solve a much more complex problem. The smartest people at the smart money firms have been on a weekslong losing streak starting at the beginning of June, with firms like Qube, Two Sigma, and Point72's Cubist suffering losses over that time. Wednesday was another rough day of trading for many funds as the average quant lost 0.8%, according to Goldman Sachs. The bank's prime brokerage unit said July was on track to be the worst month in five years and pointed to similar factors as it did earlier in the week: A momentum sell-off, crowded trades, and high volatility in certain stocks. Business Insider previously reported that quant firms have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the steady-drip losses that have eroded a hot start to the year in systematic trading. Goldman isn't the only firm that's begun to wrap its head around what's happening. Computer-run managers have come up with theses, found parallels to past markets, and are even planning for a quick rebound. A belief taking hold is that broader market calamity is unlikely to spread, as the sources of pain aren't fundamental market weakness or a lurking economic maelstrom, but rather the opposite: a surprisingly strong economy that has flooded the markets — and questionable stocks — with liquidity that happened to catch quants wrong-footed. Dark Forest Technologies, a quant fund run by former Bridgewater researcher Jacob Kline, wrote in a Friday note to investors that the current scenario is "not at all like 2007," when forced deleveraging inflicted rapid losses across the systematic space. He said this summer's swoon is a byproduct of "what we politely call a 'garbage rally.'" He theorizes that the resurgence in heavily shorted junk stocks in recent weeks has forced some smaller quant firms to sell their positions, adding to the pain for everyone still holding on. "It's a bad month but not a crisis; the drivers are atypical but not surprising," the note reads. It's not Sydney Sweeney and the memestock crowd Don't give too much credit to Sydney Sweeney and the memestock crowd. They were late to the ball game. One executive at a multimanager fund involved in quant strategies said some large funds started noticing losses before June. Weeks before Kohl's and American Eagle became retail darlings, some micro-cap stocks and thinly traded Chinese names "had been running for three weeks doing silly things." "There's no underlying malady. No COVID. No great financial crisis," the multimanager exec said. He ascribes blame largely to a broader surge in market liquidity and risk appetite, a result of positive macroeconomic developments that began burbling months ago. A "peculiar set of circumstances" preceded the quant bleeding, according to Kline. The broader stock market rally heading into June was largely driven by retail and systematic trend-following. Hedge funds had relatively low net exposure — but they had been hedging the quality stocks by shorting weak ones, which was profitable. The market reached all-time highs in June, and with prices so rich, hedge funds stopped adding to those high-quality stocks but also stopped betting against the weak ones. Removing their short positions boosted "garbage" stocks, which attracted the attention of retail traders and meme stock enthusiasts, driving those positions up further. Because quants, in simplistic terms, use their mathematical firepower to "sort good from bad," as Kline put it, this rally in low-quality companies set many of them up for pain. "Quants are generally going to be on the other side of that kind of arbitrary move," Kline said. Strategies that jump on short-term trends "may be exacerbating" the surge, said Antoine Haddad, founder of $1 billion Bainbridge Partners, a multistrategy hedge fund with quant portfolio managers. This includes "AI-driven algos too," he said. The big-picture driver of this frenzied trading is the strong macroeconomic backdrop — low inflation, muted tariff impact, lack of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve — which has attracted more money into the market. During Covid and the original memestock craze four years ago, the market was awash in liquidity, and money gravitated to odd places, including seemingly worthless stocks — not to mention NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and SPACs. What's happening in 2025 is an echo, similar but far less intense. Another wrinkle and outgrowth of the increasing liquidity and risk appetite is the thaw in equity capital markets, which "have lit up like a Christmas tree," the multimanager exec said. While capital raising was dead much of this year, companies in June began raising money again through initial public offerings, follow-on raises, and convertible bonds, all of which "accelerated towards the end of the quarter, as global issuers and investors gained confidence amid a market rebound," according to Morgan Stanley's mid-July earnings call. This allows companies, "garbage" or otherwise, to improve their prospects by injecting their coffers at attractive valuations, potentially boosting their stock price as well. While many hedge funds closely monitor such activity, it's not traditionally the bailiwick of quants. "Quants don't sit in that business and they don't see that flow," the multimanager exec said. All eyes on the industry's largest quant funds Understanding the source of the quant carnage is one question. Identifying when the pain will abate is equally important. One trader who works at one of the industry's largest quant funds told BI that the actions of the biggest firms will be the most significant factor over the next week. If these funds are forced to sell, then there could be serious pain that could impact everyone from Fidelity mutual funds to Robinhood retail traders. "Some small players don't have a choice but to capitulate," the multimanager exec said, adding that the larger firms know that if a major peer cuts its exposure, "then it becomes a bigger contagion and gets out of hand." This hasn't happened yet, and some are betting that the bigger players will just sit tight. The size of the funds, the pain tolerance of their executives, and the trust they have in their models is where the quant heavyweights have the ability to shine. They either have investor capital locked up for years or a giant horde of internal money — meaning they can withstand losses for longer, especially if they anticipate a bounceback. Dark Forest compared the situation to the end of 2023, when some smaller quants were stung by the Federal Reserve's signalling that lower rates may be coming. This increase of liquidity in the stock market caused a similar surge in stocks that quants were either short or not invested in. Those who "pulled back missed out badly," while funds that held firm saw substantial gains in the following months. "Like 2023, the losses are big enough to where they are inducing the weaker hands to delever, which is exacerbating the losses this week," the note reads. But this time around, the "strong hands" will let their models continue because "the ARKKs of the world are unlikely to keep outperforming the market by 10% a month," Kline said, referring to the innovation-focused ETF managed by Ark Investment Management. "We think strong hands should be levering up into this headwind," the note concluded. Another executive of a small quant fund said they planned to ride out the "froth in sexy sectors." "We are not going to suddenly switch our models over this," he said. "It had been a great year before the summer. Those conditions can come back." The multimanager exec believes the worst is over. It can take time for markets to recalibrate the junk stocks, but "now that everyone is writing about it, we're probably done."
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Biyoute and Relex to enhance supply chain operations
Biyoute Trading, a major retailer in northeast China, has engaged Relex Solutions to overhaul its supply chain and retail planning operations. Relex will deploy a platform to enhance demand forecasting, replenishment planning and optimisation of perishables for Biyoute's more than 100 stores, seven distribution centres, and more than 25,000 stock keeping units. The move is part of an effort to create advanced supply chain frameworks within the Chinese grocery industry. The partnership with Relex aligns with Biyoute's objective of expanding its retail footprint and achieving significant revenue milestones. It also contributes to the digital evolution of China's wider retail landscape. The technology implementation spans all merchandise categories, including perishables, providing Biyoute with a comprehensive solution for end-to-end supply chain management. The system will enable precise predictions of store-level demand and develop replenishment strategies to individual store inventories, ensuring efficient logistics and timely stock refreshment. Biyoute chairman Meng Fanzhong stated: 'Throughout our history, Biyoute has consistently adhered to three strategic values: first, providing one-stop shopping for household fast-moving consumer goods; second, pursuing extreme cost-performance ratio; and third, earning customer trust. 'All three depend critically on the efficiency, resilience and flexibility of our supply chain. Biyoute's future development requires professional partners like Relex, and I have great expectations for this cooperation.' The initiative will centralise decision-making processes that were previously decentralised, transitioning from reactive responses to supply chain issues towards a forward-looking planning model with predictive analytics. This strategy aims to pre-emptively address challenges, enhance inventory turnover rates, minimise stockouts and perishable waste, and optimise operational costs. Supporting this venture is Beijing Times Consulting, a local consultancy with prior experience assisting Biyoute in refining its distribution practices. Together with Relex, Beijing TCBC will pool resources and expertise to further improve Biyoute's supply chain performance. Relex Solutions co-founder Michael Falck stated: 'The partnership with Biyoute is a key milestone in Relex's commitment to the Chinese market. Through this collaboration, we have gained deeper understanding of local grocers' supply chain operations. 'Biyoute's dedication to data-driven and lean operations highly aligns with Relex's philosophy. We will fully leverage our global supply chain optimisation experience, combined with Biyoute's local operational expertise, to support their development strategy.' "Biyoute and Relex to enhance supply chain operations" was originally created and published by Retail Insight Network, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
