AMKR — expert X mentions

Test and packaging has been the best corner of semis all year. Two leaders in that space both report this week. $AMKR which is the only US advanced packaging name at scale, and almost all of this work happens in Asia. In the last two months they signed a 10 year agreement with TSMC for Arizona capacity and Nvidia gave them a $1.5 billion multi year deal with cash prepaid against future capacity. Nvidia doesn't prepay a supplier unless they're worried about getting allocation. $FORM makes the probe cards that test chips and ranks number one globally in test subsystems. Last quarter was an all time revenue record, up 32%, with gross margins expanding 510bps to 49% and EPS beating by 33%. Record DRAM probe card revenue driven by HBM, the exact product that's sold out through 2030. The compute layer gets all the attention. The layer that makes compute functional is where a lot of the quiet money is being made. $AMKR $FORM

$AMKR is over 30% off its all time high, and the last month makes that look ridiculous. The stock hit over $96 in early June, then bled down to the mid $60s with the whole sector. And a lot has happened. June they signed a 10 year advanced packaging agreement with TSMC in Arizona, sitting right next to TSMC’s fabs. They already package for AMD. Then yesterday, Nvidia handed them a $1.5 billion multi year deal. And Nvidia is PREPAYING, cash upfront against future capacity. What they do is the part most people miss. Amkor is the packaging layer of the chip supply chain. When TSMC finishes a wafer, someone has to package, stack, and test it before it works, and advanced packaging has quietly become one of THE bottlenecks in AI. Almost all of it happens in Asia. Amkor is basically the only US name doing it at scale, which is why every reshoring dollar and CHIPS Act push flows their way. The stock popped over 20% after hours on the Nvidia news and faded the entire move today. Picked by Nvidia, TSMC, and AMD in two months.

A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here's a full recap: 1. Tesla $TSLA was down 14% today, its worst day since January 2024, while Google $GOOGL was down 7% after posting its first negative free cash flow quarter since 2004. The macro backdrop is not helping either. Crude oil has pushed back above $90/barrel for the first time since June and is up 25% over the past month. At the same time, the 10-year Treasury yield has crossed 4.7%, while jobless claims came in at 187K vs 211K expected, showing a stronger labor market but also raising concerns that inflation pressure could persist. Today was the worst day for the Mag 7 since April 2025 with all 7 stocks erasing $800B of market cap. 2. AMD $AMD CEO Lisa Su said at the AMD Advancing AI event today that the AI accelerator market could grow to $1.4T by 2030, within a broader compute market expected to reach $2T. She also noted that monthly AI token consumption has surged 158x over the past two years, underscoring how quickly compute demand is scaling. AMD unveiled Helios, its new rack-scale AI system built around the MI450 accelerator, which Su called the fastest AI accelerator in the industry. Helios is now in full production, with shipments expected to start at the end of Q3 and ramp through Q4. 3. Intel $INTC posted a strong Q2, with revenue of $16.1B vs $14.5B expected, up 25% YoY, and adjusted EPS of $0.42 vs $0.22 expected. Adjusted gross margin came in at 41.8% vs 39% expected, up 1,210 bps YoY, while non-GAAP operating margin reached 17.2% vs 10.7% expected. Segment results were strong across the core business, with CCPG revenue up 13% YoY to $8.9B, DCAI revenue up 59% YoY to $6.3B, total Intel Products revenue up 28% YoY to $15.1B, and Intel Foundry revenue up 31% YoY to $5.8B. Management said Q2 marked Intel’s strongest revenue growth in more than 15 years, driven by better execution, higher factory yields, improved cycle times, and stronger customer demand. 4. Trump warned that the U.S. will hold Iran responsible if the Houthis resume attacks on commercial shipping. He said the Houthis had acted “responsibly” after previous U.S. strikes, but are now “starting up again” after reportedly firing on two Saudi Arabian ships last night. Trump said the Houthis are a proxy of Iran, and that any further attacks would trigger major military punishment against both Iran and the Houthis. 5. Nvidia $NVDA is committing $1.5B to Amkor $AMKR through a prepayment tied to a multi-year advanced packaging and development agreement. The funding will help Amkor expand U.S. packaging capacity at its Arizona campus as both companies work on next-generation packaging and test technologies for AI and accelerated computing. The partnership will focus on high-density interconnects and heterogeneous integration, which are key for combining multiple chips and components into more powerful systems. 6. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $TSLA with 3.6M contracts, $NVDA with 2.4M contracts, $GOOGL with 994K contracts, $AMZN with 940K contracts, $SPCX with 917K contracts, $AAPL with 732K contracts, $INTC with 706K contracts, $MU with 664K contracts, $GOOG with 560K contracts, and $MSFT with 532K contracts. 7. South Korea is moving to tighten rules around leveraged single-stock ETFs and ETNs beginning July 31. Retail investors will now need about $20,300 in cash to open or add to a position, up from roughly $6,800 previously. The key change is that stocks, bonds, and other securities will no longer count toward the deposit requirement, making it harder for retail traders to access these leveraged products. 8. U.S. mortgage rates rose for the third straight week, with the average 30-year fixed climbing to 6.58%, putting rates back near their highest level in a year. 9. AMD $AMD and Cerebras $CBRS are teaming up on a disaggregated AI inference architecture that divides workloads between both platforms. In the setup, AMD Helios manages prompts and long-context processing, while Cerebras’ Wafer-Scale Engine focuses on ultra-low-latency token generation. The companies say the combined system can deliver up to 5x more tokens per second per watt than Cerebras alone, with initial availability expected through Cerebras Cloud in the second half of 2026. 10. Uber $UBER cut 10% of roles in its customer service operations as it restructures the division and leans further into AI. The company said fragmented workflows were making it harder to roll out AI at scale, and this marks Uber’s first layoff round specifically tied to AI-driven efficiency. 11. SpaceX $SPCX is reportedly turning away satellite operators looking for dedicated Falcon 9 launches beyond 2028 as the company shifts more of its long-term launch strategy toward Starship, per Bloomberg. SpaceX has also stopped taking future Falcon 9 rideshare reservations and has paused production of some expendable Falcon components, though Falcon 9 is still expected to remain active for NASA and Pentagon missions. The risk is timing: if Starship is not commercially ready by 2028, the market could face a major launch-capacity gap, creating a bigger opening for competitors like Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, and ULA. 12. Meta’s $META new $12B Texas data center financing, tied to a nearly 1GW project, is reportedly being discussed at yields above 7%. That is roughly 40 bps higher than Meta’s $27B Hyperion financing from just nine months ago, adding about $48M in annual interest expense. Hyperion bonds are now trading around 96 cents on the dollar, showing how financing costs for massive AI infrastructure projects are starting to move higher. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.