Morning Wrap: AI stocks sell-off (07.07.2026)

Equities

• Following relatively upbeat Monday trading , Nasdaq 100 futures are down by over 1%. Sentiment surrounding leaders of the AI revolution, companies that have recorded the largest gains to date, is deteriorating once again.
• The trigger for the selloff was Samsung’s preliminary Q2 results. Record operating profit ($58.4 billion) and record revenue ($112 billion) proved insufficient to satisfy investors. Expectations were set higher, and an extremely positive scenario was already priced into the stock. Following the publication, shares are falling by nearly 10%.
• Following Samsung’s lead, the entire Korean KOSPI index has followed suit. The selloff was once again so significant that trading was halted for 20 minutes. Currently, the decline stands at 6% on a daily basis.
• Other Asian stock indices are also in the red: the Shanghai SE Composite is down 1.6%, the Hang Seng by less than 0.5%, and the Nikkei by 2.2%. One of the leaders of the decline in Japan is Kioxia (-11%) – the largest company by capitalisation on the Japanese stock exchange and one of the world's largest producers of NAND flash memory and SSDs (previously operating under the name Toshiba Memory).

Geopolitics

• President Trump’s comments yesterday regarding the situation in the Middle East passed without much echo. He stated that "Iran must sign a deal," otherwise "the USA will return and finish the job." The market reaction, however, was marginal, and energy commodity prices remained almost unchanged.

Commodities

• We are observing a stabilisation in crude oil prices, with Brent trading at approx. $73 (up 0.9% today) and WTI at approx. $69.
• TTF gas is up to just over $46 per MWh (up 4.9% today), while natural gas is down ($3.23, -0.6% since the start of the day). 
• Precious metals are down, which stems, among other things, from the renewed rise in Treasury bond yields in major economies. We are currently paying approx. $4125 per troy ounce of gold (-1%) and slightly over $60 for silver (-2.4%).

Macroeconomic data

• Yesterday’s data on factory orders in Germany surprised on the upside (a 6.2% increase). Today’s reading on industrial production for May was also better than expected (up by an impressive 0.9% month-on-month).
  • The country is still awaiting the effects of the massive fiscal stimulus announced in March last year by Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 500 billion euros were allocated to investments in infrastructure, healthcare, the energy sector, and digital modernisation at that time.
• Eurozone PPI inflation is also up (to 5.9%). However, the reading is largely in line with expectations.
  • Data on retail sales (1.6% year-on-year) also did not surprise.
• In the United States, there was a modest downward revision of the PMI indices for June. The composite index finally landed at 51.9, which suggests a slowdown in economic growth compared to the very impressive 2.7% in Q1.

Currencies

• Due to the modest rise in Brent crude oil prices (+0.8% against Friday’s close) and a slightly larger increase in LNG on the Dutch TTF exchange (+3% over the same period), the Norwegian krone (+0.5%) sits at the top of the currency rankings for this week.
• Conversely, traditional safe-haven currencies are losing ground, specifically the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc (both down 0.3%).

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin (-1.2%) and Ethereum (-1.4%) continue to decline.