A heavy batch of premarket developments hit global markets on July 31, spanning chip shorts, Big Tech earnings, Bitcoin-related losses, and Korean regulatory changes. Michael Burry added to bearish positions tied to Micron, Nvidia, and the semiconductor ETF SOXX. A Wall Street Journal report said Tesla advisers had discussed a plan to separate the company’s China business, though Tesla China called the claim false. Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund Situational Awareness posted a roughly 67% drop in net asset value during July’s AI stock sell-off and sold most of its equity holdings to meet margin calls, with Citadel taking over a sizable portion. Amazon’s cloud revenue rose 37% year over year to $42.2 billion, beating expectations and lifting the stock more than 10% in premarket trading, while Apple topped revenue forecasts but fell more than 8% after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance tied to memory shortages and softer-than-expected China and services revenue. Strategy reported an $8.2 billion second-quarter loss driven by unrealized losses on its Bitcoin holdings. In South Korea, Samsung executive Roh Tae-moon bought about 700 million won of company stock, Doosan agreed to buy SK’s 70.6% stake in SK Siltron for 2.3 trillion won, and single-stock leveraged ETF turnover dropped 75.3% on the first day of new restrictions.

Samsung's smallest union, representing DX employees, filed a court injunction to halt a wage deal vote, citing chip division bonuses 85x higher. The union claims the deal favors chip workers unfairly.

Samsung MX chief TM Roh warns mobile business may post first-ever annual net loss. Not due to weak sales—Galaxy S26 is strong—but soaring DRAM/NAND prices from AI server demand. Memory now over 20% of flagship BOM, margins crushed.