Federal Reserve Governor Jefferson: No Need to Hurry to Further Cut Interest Rates, Strong Economy Makes Caution Appropriate

Kim Yong-beom, Chief of Policy Office of South Korea’s Presidential Office, clearly stated today on a KBS program that delisting single-stock leveraged ETFs—blamed as a main driver of recent sharp stock price swings—is "unthinkable". Investors are deeply engaged in these products, whose total size exceeds 10 trillion won. "Forcing delisting would itself cause massive market shocks, and we would also have to absorb selling pressure," he said. Kim also affirmed supplementary measures recently rolled out by South Korea’s financial regulators, including raising the margin requirement for leveraged ETFs to 30 million won in cash and setting a minimum trading unit of 20 shares. He noted that the measures "have largely addressed issues raised by the market and will mitigate side effects significantly once implemented." Kim further pointed out that leveraged products amplify their market impact twice over during downturns, calling for further discussions with regulators, asset management firms, and securities companies on minimizing market shocks during specific periods—especially narrowing the deviation between ETF net asset value (NAV) and actual closing price, and properly managing selling pressure generated to reduce this gap.

Well-known crypto KOL Ansem said he is bullish on ZEC’s upside potential following a breakout, and has set a price alert at $750. The crypto asset has been range-bound for nearly a year. If it breaks out to new highs, the next leg of this trend will bring extremely sharp gains. Ansem added that he currently holds no position, but believes it would be a mistake not to enter the market if a breakout actually occurs. Per HTX market data, ZEC has been rising steadily since breaking above $400 earlier this month, and is now trading at $565.

A report from South Korea’s Meritz Securities shows that, according to channel checks, Middle Eastern sovereign AI investors including Saudi Arabia have recently begun discussing medium and long-term storage product procurement plans with South Korean memory chip manufacturers. Amid rising demand, the spot market for server DRAM has started facing upward price pressure, with particularly notable gains in high-end products boasting a bus speed of 6400Mbps. The report notes that as supply shortages intensify, investment competition between cloud service providers and frontier model developers is increasingly focusing on products that maximize performance. Spot prices for 64GB DDR5 server DRAM have risen sharply since mid-July, recently reaching $3,100 to $3,400, a roughly 146% increase from the contract price of around $1,380 at the end of June. Meritz Securities projects that the sequential rise in server DRAM contract prices in Q3 2026 could exceed the current market expectation of around 15%. Suppliers that adopted more flexible, customer-friendly pricing in Q2 may see particularly sharp price increases in Q3 and Q4.

Prediction market platform Predict.fun data shows that the 2026 FIFA World Cup (co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico) final will pit Spain against Argentina. As of press time, the market gives Spain a roughly 58% chance of winning the tournament, while Argentina’s odds stand at around 41%, with traders overall favoring Spain to lift the World Cup trophy. The 2026 World Cup final is set to kick off at 3 a.m. Beijing time on July 20. As two of the tournament’s most outstanding sides, Spain and Argentina will battle for the World Cup trophy. This marks the first time in history that the reigning European champion and reigning South American champion have met in a World Cup final. The two sides have faced off 14 times in history, with each recording 6 wins and 2 draws. They have only met once in the World Cup, when Argentina beat Spain 2-1 in the 1966 World Cup group stage. Both sides have set multiple records in this World Cup. Spain has conceded only 1 goal in its first 7 matches; if they shut out their opponent and win the final, they will break the record for the fewest goals conceded by a World Cup champion in a single tournament. Argentina, meanwhile, advanced to the final with seven straight wins and 19 goals scored, extending its World Cup unbeaten run to 13 matches (11 wins, 2 draws). If Argentina successfully defends its title, it will become the third team in history to win back-to-back World Cups, following Italy and Brazil.

According to South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper, SK Group Chairman and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Choi Tae-won stated that driven by the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), demand for AI semiconductors is projected to rise by at least 60% to 100% next year compared to this year, while overall memory chip demand will also grow by at least 50% to 60%. Choi noted that the additional supply each company can increase next year is very limited, so the supply-demand gap may widen further, with global firms currently scrambling for memory chip supplies. He added that existing expansion plans are still insufficient to meet the rapidly growing demand; SK’s current strategy is “build wherever possible”, but equipment, personnel and construction timelines continue to restrict capacity release. Choi also pointed out that current memory chip prices have deviated from normal ranges, and PC and smartphone manufacturers cannot keep passing cost increases to consumers. Semiconductor enterprises should not limit supply to maintain high prices; even if their profit margins decline, they should expand output and grow the market. Otherwise, excessive prices may attract new competitors and trigger government interventions. He further stated that the AI industry is facing shortages of infrastructure such as GPUs, storage and power, and new bottlenecks may emerge in the future. Regarding the possibility of a stock split for SK Hynix, Choi said the plan has not been fully studied, and adjustments for Korean domestic stocks and American depositary receipts (ADRs) need to be evaluated together.

The Kobeissi Letter stated in a post that the three-week volatility of U.S. momentum stocks relative to the S&P 500 index has surged to four times, hitting an all-time high. This ratio has more than quadrupled over the past several weeks. The momentum stock group includes high-growth tech stocks at the center of the AI boom, such as NVIDIA, AMD, Palantir, D-Wave Quantum, and CoreWeave. By comparison, the ratio peaked at around 2 times during the 2020 COVID-19 market crash and roughly 1.8 times during the dot-com bubble burst. The current level is significantly higher than those periods. Meanwhile, the U.S. momentum stock index has dropped 24% since July, marking its largest monthly decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The stocks that previously performed the strongest are quickly losing market favor.