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Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
It was a blockbuster day for chip stocks. Both Micron and Qualcomm soared on positive prospects, giving Micron the unlikely title of Wall Street’s new margin king, ahead of Nvidia and Meta.
But a new challenger is entering the fray. South Korea’s SK Hynix has applied to list on the Nasdaq ADR for a whopping $29.4 billion, making it the second-largest U.S. listing after SpaceX.
Meanwhile, oil prices continue to fall as tensions ease between the US and Iran. However, Trump administration officials have maintained that Iran would use unfrozen assets to purchase U.S. goods, a claim that Iran has not confirmed or agreed to.
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What you need to know today
Move over, NVIDIA. A new king has been born in town. At least in terms of profit margins.
Memory chip maker Micron reported gross profit margin of 84.9% in its latest quarter, up from 74.9% in the previous quarter and 39% a year earlier, and its stock price rose 15% on Wednesday.
That’s the highest among major U.S. technology companies, ahead of social media giant Meta’s latest gross margin of 81.9% and Nvidia’s 75%.
Building out AI infrastructure continues to drive demand for high-bandwidth memory, allowing Micron to set records for profitability almost as quickly as customers can get chips.
Another company whose stock rose 15% was Qualcomm, which raised its fiscal 2029 non-mobile revenue forecast to $40 billion, nearly double the previous estimate of $22 billion.
The company has been aggressively expanding into data centers, announcing a data center central processing unit called the Dragonfly C1000, which Meta said it would use when production begins in 2028.
The new processor is designed for agent-like AI applications, with an emphasis on energy efficiency.
Another AI winner from across the Pacific will soon be heading to Wall Street. South Korea’s SK Hynix, which recently briefly overtook Samsung Electronics to become Seoul’s most valuable company, has filed for a Nasdaq ADR listing that could be worth up to $29.4 billion, reportedly making it the second-biggest stock sale after SpaceX. The company’s shares soared as much as 11% in Thursday trading.
But while Wall Street is enjoying the sun, the shadow of the Middle East conflict looms over the White House.
Since the US and Iran agreed to open sea lanes, oil prices have fallen further after at least 20 oil tankers (35 million barrels) stranded in the Persian Gulf left the Strait of Hormuz. US crude oil futures fell below $70 for the first time since March.
US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iran has told him that ships attempting to transit the strategic Strait of Hormuz will not be charged tolls, insurance or any other fees.
He also said unfrozen Iranian assets would be used to buy U.S. agricultural products, a claim echoed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
But Iran doesn’t seem to think the same way. Iranian officials on Tuesday rejected the idea that the United States or its partners would decide how to spend Iran’s unfrozen assets, saying agricultural purchases would be based on price and quality rather than conditions imposed by the United States.
The Iran conflict bill also now appears to be returning to roost in Washington. The White House sent Congress a request for $87.6 billion in additional funding for the Iran war, agricultural aid, and more. The bill immediately ran into opposition from Congressional Democrats.
— Lim Huijie
And finally…
Anthropic slams Alibaba over campaign to ‘brazenly’ and ‘illegally’ extract AI capabilities
Antropic has sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee accusing Chinese tech company Alibaba of “brazenly” and “illegally” trying to extract artificial intelligence capabilities, CNBC confirmed Wednesday.
The letter, sent on June 10 to Sens. Tim Scott (South Carolina) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), said Alibaba had launched “the largest distillation attack ever known on Anthropic.”
Distillation is an AI training method that uses the output from an existing, more powerful model to build a smaller, less powerful model.
— Ashley Caputo
