Bruce Kim 🇰🇷

[Peter B @realpeteyb123]

Life is short, and you will regret every minute you waste as you age.

Get off this app, and stop spending hours being cattle to influencers.

I did, and I’ve never been happier.

Back to basics.
Go have fun.

[Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv]

🔴South Korea's stock market is trading like it's the 2008 Financial Crisis all over again:

Daily price swings in the KOSPI have surged to levels last seen only during the 2008 Financial Crisis and even exceed the moves seen during the 2020 pandemic crash.

The index has seen at least 7 moves down of at least -5% and 2 of around -10% or more.

The KOSPI 200 Volatility Index, effectively Korea's version of the VIX, recently traded just shy of 100, an all-time high.

This surpasses the volatility levels reached at the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis.

These extreme swings have triggered 6 market-wide trading halts so far in 2026, half of all such halts since the system's inception in 2000.

This comes as the rapid rise of highly leveraged single-stock ETFs tracking Samsung and SK Hynix has turned the Korean market into a casino.

This is a market behaving anything but normally.

[Barchart @Barchart]

Stock Market Crash "Hindenburg Omen" Triggered 🚨

The Hindenburg Omen, an indicator that correctly detected the 1987 and 2008 stock market crashes, has been triggered 11 times over the last month for the Nasdaq, the most in history 🤯👀

[Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv]

⚠️THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE STAT:

Samsung, SK Hynix, and their leveraged ETFs now account for more than 70% of total trading value in South Korea's $4.3 trillion stock market.

This is up from 31% just before the leveraged ETFs launched on May 27, and had reached as high as 84% in late June.

Samsung and SK Hynix alone make up ~55% of the KOSPI's total weighting.

The leveraged ETFs, which track twice the daily returns of Samsung and SK Hynix, were designed to keep retail money in Korea and support the won.

Instead, they have amplified volatility, forcing Korean brokerages to sharply raise margin requirements on both stocks this month.

Meanwhile, the KOSPI has fallen -22% since its June peak, entering a bear market, with market-wide trading halts triggered 6 times this year alone, half of all circuit breakers seen since 2000.

When 2stocks and their leveraged products dominate daily trading, the market becomes increasingly vulnerable to sharp reversals.

The same concentration that fueled the rally is now accelerating the selloff.

[Macro Alpha @MacroAlphaHQ]

🚨 The retail AI supercycle crowd is currently learning a very expensive lesson in Seoul.
SK Hynix and Samsung just dragged the KOSPI straight into a bear market on a brutal memory chip selloff.
Everyone screaming to buy the dip on US peers today is completely misreading the tape.
Retail assumes memory chips only go up because of secular AI demand.
The KOSPI rolling over means the memory glut is already here.
Here is the sequence playing out.
Inventory piles up locally so foreign capital aggressively dumps Korean equities to cut exposure.
That selling pressure bleeds straight into US rivals like Micron as funds de-risk the whole sector.
If you hold cyclical semi risk right now assuming the AI halo protects you, you are catching a falling knife for offshore institutions.
its kinda funny watching them try.
The KOSPI is the canary.

[Macro Alpha @MacroAlphaHQ]

Look at the sheer volume of red across these July Form 4 filings.
The people with absolute visibility into next quarters pipeline are aggressively dumping equity.
C-suite officers are exchanging paper wealth for hard cash as fast as the market can absorb it.

when retail blindly bids a tech dip assuming infinite growth, this is exactly who is on the other side of the trade supplying the shares.

the common defense is always that these are pre-scheduled administrative sales.
that ignores the basic mechanics of how executive monetization actually works.

insiders set plan parameters around target liquidity zones.
when a board knows their forward multiple is stretched to perfection, those strike parameters trigger. the selling is mechanical because the internal valuation dictates it.

CRWD leadership is systematically cashing out blocks at 201.
they know exactly what the enterprise software order book looks like going into the back half of the year.

the people managing the actual balance sheets are taking liquidity while it is still there.

[Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor]

BREAKING: Iran CLOSES the Strait of Hormuz.

[محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf @mb_ghalibaf]

آمریکا هنوز یاد نگرفته است که زورگویی و بدعهدی دیگر بی‌هزینه نیست. شفاف بگویم: بزنید، می‌خورید.

دست و پای بیهوده نزنید که بیشتر فرو خواهید رفت: تنگه هرمز، فقط با «ترتیبات ایرانی» باز می‌شود نه با تهدیدات آمریکایی.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: Iran has now also launched ballistic missiles at the US Al-Azraq base in eastern Jordan.

Less than a month ago, Iran targeted the same base, striking F-35s, F-15 and F-16 jets housed there.

[Edward Dowd @DowdEdward]

This inflation is credit driven by AI infrastructure build. It relies on the credit markets continued financing.

The private credit markets are struggling mightily.

Caution is warranted.

[BRICS News @BRICSinfo]

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 US launches new round of strikes on Iran.

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

🚨 THE FED JUST OFFICIALLY BLAMED AI FOR RISING INFLATION.

In the June 16-17 FOMC minutes, the Fed's staff directly cited AI-related price pressures as a driver of core goods inflation, alongside tariffs.

Here's what the minutes say:

1. Core goods price inflation has risen, with staff attributing it to "tariffs and AI-related price pressures" directly

2. The Fed sees no rate changes through early 2027, with one cut only in Q2 2027

3. Market pricing already implies one rate hike by mid-2027

4. Some members believe AI will eventually reduce inflation through productivity gains, but explicitly warned "this effect would likely take time to materialize"

The contradiction is now official.

The same AI boom driving semiconductor stocks up 220% this year is also pushing up chip prices, memory prices, electricity prices, and data center construction costs.

Those cost increases are flowing directly into the inflation data the Fed is watching.

AI is contributing to inflation right now. The productivity payoff that might reduce inflation is years away.

That keeps rates higher for longer. And higher rates are the single biggest risk to the AI valuations the market has been pricing in all year.

[Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor]

BREAKING: META [FACEBOOK] facing $1.4 TRILLION in penalties risking CLOSURE following massive mental health case.

META [Formally Facebook] has a market cap of $1.52-1.55 TRILLION.

[The Iranian Letter @TheIranianzg3z]

BREAKING: President Trump says he believes the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran is over.

Following his remarks at the NATO summit in Ankara, Israeli media reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has canceled his planned visit to Israel.

[Kalshi @Kalshi]

JUST IN: Michael Burry says bears think in "6 dimensions"

[Joe Kent @joekent16jan19]

Now that the MOU is effectively dead, as Brett explains below, we are back to attempting to find a military solution to the SOH.

The problem is that we signed the MOU because there was no military solution & we needed the SOH open.

Our best option is to just walk away.

If we walk Iran has no justification for targeting ships & we can use sanctions relief as our carrot, as opposed to risking a larger war in these ineffective tit for tat strikes.

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

BREAKING: Earnings, not just valuations, are flashing bubble warnings, per FT.

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

More explosions in Qeshm Island and Kharg Island: Press TV

[Watcher.Guru @WatcherGuru]

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 US revokes license that allowed Iran to sell oil.

[The Iranian Letter @TheIranianzg3z]

WATCH: Footage shows U.S. strikes hitting Bandar Abbas Port in southern Iran.