US Premarket Roundup: Burry Adds to Chip Shorts, Samsung Executive Buys More Shares

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.