JPMorgan Cuts Q4 Gold Price Forecast to $4,500 Per Ounce
JP Morgan has adopted a conservative outlook on gold's short-term performance, slashing its Q4 2026 gold price forecast by 25% to $4,500 per ounce, down from its earlier target of roughly $6,000. The U.S. bank also projects an average gold price of $4,300 for the third quarter of this year. The revision is primarily attributed to weak demand in gold's key purchasing segments, paired with gold's heightened sensitivity to real interest rate fluctuations, which has capped short-term upside potential. The institution forecasts gold prices will trade in a range for the remainder of the year, with a recovery rally only materializing after an improvement in the macroeconomic backdrop.
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Japanese and South Korean stock markets opened higher but closed lower.
According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index closed down 6.38 points, or 0.01%, at 69,737.69 points on July 6 (Monday). South Korea’s KOSPI index fell 37.01 points, or 0.46%, to end at 8,051.33 points on the same day, having rallied nearly 3% at the opening.
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Samsung Electronics' foundry business returned to monthly profit in June, marking its first such performance in three years.
Samsung Electronics’ Foundry Business Division achieved monthly profitability in June this year, marking its first monthly profit since 2023. Industry analysts attribute this turnaround to rising orders for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) base chips and improved yield rates for advanced processes, which reduced fixed cost burdens and drove a recovery in profitability. Based on current trends, Samsung’s foundry business is expected to return to quarterly profitability in the third quarter. While overall second-quarter results remain weighed down by losses in April and May, making it difficult to confirm the entire quarter turned profitable, Samsung’s internal teams widely hold that the likelihood of achieving quarterly profitability in Q3 has risen significantly following June’s monthly profit. Analysts note this is the Foundry Business Division’s first monthly profit since 2023. Over the past years, the division has long operated at a loss, due to multiple factors including low yield rates for advanced processes, loss of major clients, and insufficient capacity utilization.
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Serenity: Projects that prices of upstream materials for AI optical interconnects will continue to rise.
Serenity issued a statement noting that a new research report from Nomura Securities points out that as AI infrastructure construction continues to heat up, the upstream photon materials supply chain is facing dual pressures of surging demand and tightening supply. AXTI and IQE are among the main beneficiaries of the indium phosphide (InP) industrial chain. In terms of pricing, the price of 2-inch InP substrates is expected to rise by 42% to 76%, while 3-inch InP substrates will increase by approximately 78%; the price of 2-inch EML epitaxial wafers is projected to rise by 50% to 75%, and the price of 3-inch CW epitaxial wafers will also jump by more than 40%. The report argues that the ongoing expansion of AI data centers by hyperscale cloud service providers is pushing the entire optical communication industry chain into a stage of tight supply and demand, with bottleneck signs emerging across all links from material prices and end-market demand to supply capacity. Serenity stated that as AI optical interconnect demand continues to release over the next few years, upstream photon material prices will keep rising, similar to the price hike cycle SanDisk experienced before. Whether this judgment will hold true as AI demand curves climb further in the next two years remains to be verified by the market.
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