đź’ľ Semiconductor & Memory Market Dynamics

  • DRAM shortages are forecasted to persist until at least 2028. SMIC’s CEO confirms a “persistent shortage for a considerable period” in HBM due to AI computing demand, with bottlenecks shifting to back-end processes 2, 8.
  • Morgan Stanley’s commentary on Micron highlights memory producers have “virtually no inventory,” leading to supply struggles for Chinese Android OEMs and consumer PC makers 18.
  • Taiwanese manufacturer Winbond projects DRAM prices to surge 90–95% this quarter, expecting similar increases next quarter, signaling a severe and sustained pricing upswing 19.
  • ByteDance is reportedly in talks with Samsung Foundry to manufacture its ASICs, a significant development in the AI chip supply chain 14.

🤖 AI Disruption & Tech Sector Impacts

  • AI tools are rapidly disrupting traditional industries: Altruist’s AI tax strategy tool led to drops in wealth management (Schwab), Insurify’s new tools hit insurance brokers (S&P 500 Insurance Index down nearly 4%), and Anthropic’s releases caused software stock sell-offs. The question looms: who’s the next AI disruption target? 7.
  • Cloudflare’s strong earnings suggest security stocks were “wrongly killed” in the recent software sector pullback. While AI Agents may displace some software applications, security remains a critical, growing demand that intensifies with agent adoption 24.
  • $NBIS’s $275M acquisition of an AI agent search API indicates a strategic pivot from merely offering “GPU rental” to establishing itself as a platform player 22.

₿ Crypto Market Outlook

  • The sheer scale of “crypto deaths” (liquidations/project failures) in 2025 was almost 4x the annual American death toll, a startling indicator of market volatility 6.
  • $BTC rallied from $60k to $72k, now seeing a ~50% retracement back to $67k—a potential dead cat bounce. If it retests $60k and fails to form a double bottom, a breach could trigger a deeper correction to the $49k support level 11.

🏢 Company Performance & Strategy

  • QDVO (Covered Call ETF) offers high yield by targeting Russell 1000 Growth Index large-caps with robust cash flow, consistent profit growth, and competitive moats. Its concentrated portfolio (20–40 stocks) limits risk with caps of 50% per industry and 15% per stock 4.
  • Tencent faces mounting pressure from rivals like ByteDance and Alibaba, who demonstrate higher capex and growth rates (ByteDance nearly doubling, Tencent high teen growth in 2025; overseas competitors showing 70+% growth in 2026). Despite this, I maintain confidence in Tencent’s long-term resilience 9.
  • Amazon ($AMZN) secured FCC approval for 4500 LEO internet satellites, positioning Amazon LEO to directly challenge Starlink (SpaceX currently operates 9646 satellites in orbit, 9636 active) 12.
  • $NET (Cloudflare) earnings reveal accelerating revenue growth (27% → 28% → 31% → 33.6% over four quarters). While Non-GAAP gross margin experienced a slight dip (77.1% → 74.9%), this decline is seen as explainable and overshadowed by strong demand metrics 15.
  • Astera Labs ($ALAB) Q4 2025 earnings are solid, reflecting strong strategic foresight from management. I remain bullish on their leadership’s direction 21.