📈 TSMC ($TSM ) is reported to be raising wafer prices across the board starting early 2027. 7nm and above, 77% of Q2 revenue, gets a 5 to 10% baseline hike. HPC orders that exceed customers' prior forecasts carry an extra 10 to 15% surcharge, pushing some advanced-node increases past 10%. Mature nodes (12nm, 16nm, 28nm and legacy), 23% of last quarter's revenue, rise up to 10%. Customer talks started in June and closed in July. TSMC is passing rising materials, equipment, and overseas fab costs straight through, and pricing the surcharge specifically at customers who keep pulling HPC demand forward.

$ARM is broken and the AI CPU trade is over At least that’s what the market is pricing after a 46% crash in three weeks. There’s just one problem: the chip everyone is selling hasn’t shipped a single unit yet. 453 to 243 in four weeks. Downgrades, valuation calls, ETF outflows, every bear argument hit at once. But look where the selling stopped: $ARM is backtesting its breakout zone just above 189, the level that capped this stock for two years before the breakout. Price has held it so far. Growth Catalyst The core business is compounding while the new one loads. $ARM closed FY26 with $4.92B in revenue, up 23%, its third straight year of 20%+ growth. This was capped by a record $1.49B quarter in May. Data center royalty revenue more than doubled year over year, and roughly half of all hyperscaler CPUs now run on Arm: Graviton, Axion, Cobalt, Grace, every one of them paying $ARM a toll. Layer the AGI CPU on top, with first production revenue hitting in Q4 FY27 and a $15B long-term target, and the setup writes itself. Two catalysts on deck: $INTC reports July 23 and $ARM wins either way. Strong Intel means CPU demand is hot, weak Intel means the market share is already sitting in $ARM’s pocket. Then $ARM prints July 29. Trade Ideas $ARM above 285 Day Trade: 7/24 300C Swing Trade: 8/21 350C When a stock retests the level that launched an explosive move, the bounce off it can be just as violent as the breakout. Most traders wait until buying feels comfortable again. By then the discount is gone. Pullbacks like this don’t come often.

$ASML: Revenue increased and optimistic outlook for 2026—ASML remains the bottleneck supplier of the chip world. Analysts hail this as confirmation of lithography dominance; the reality: No true rally without longer lead times. #ASML #Semiconductors #Earnings

𝗔𝗜 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗚𝗮𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘁 | 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟮 Last week, $TSM + $ASML beat and raised, but the market sold the news. This week we hear from demand: @StockSavvyShay's chart shows hyperscaler FCF compounding toward ~$650B, and the first capex print lands Wednesday. 𝗪𝗲𝗱 𝗝𝘂𝗹 𝟮𝟮 | 𝗣𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁 𝗗𝗮𝘆 ○ $GOOGL: does hyperscaler capex validate TSMC's new $60–64B? ○ $SKHY: memory check on the AI build-out ○ $TXN: the analog tell on everything that isn't AI 𝗧𝗵𝘂 𝗝𝘂𝗹 𝟮𝟯 | 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 ○ $INTC: foundry ambitions vs. foundry economics ○ $KLAC: equipment chain print with→ $LRCX Jul 29 → $AMAT Aug 13. 𝗝𝘂𝗹 𝟮𝟳–𝟯𝟭 | 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 × 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 ○ 13 prints include: $LRCX $QCOM $ARM ○ Critical capex prints: $MSFT $META $AMZN ○ FOMC decision Jul 28–29: blackout currently ○ Q2 GDP + June PCE land Jul 30 If capex confirms what supply is forecasting while the Fed stays out of the way, sell-the-news bears could be offsides. Which print moves the tape this week?

What’s interesting about this story is that SanDisk is partnering with UMC. For those that don’t know UMC is a partner on HBF (High Bandwidth Flash). As compute architectures advance being as close to the packaging as possible is going to be more common. SanDisk would not be working with UMC to have HBF w/ FinFET logic node like HBM does if it were not being used in someone’s architecture 👀 Things are looking very interesting for HBF to complement HBM as model weights continue to expand. $SNDK

At 54, he'd been fired from two companies and failed his PhD exam twice. He asked Intel, TI, Motorola, and Sony to invest in his next idea. All four said no. He built the company anyway. It's now worth over $2 trillion. His name is Morris Chang. He wanted to be a novelist. He grew up in China during three wars, moving six times before he turned 18. Fled to Hong Kong at six. Walked 50 days to reach Chongqing when the Japanese invaded. His childhood was, in his own words, "war, poverty, injustice." But he loved stories. He spent years dreaming about writing for a living. His father killed it in one sentence. "You'll go hungry." So he went to America instead. Harvard first. Then MIT. He typed other students' papers for $1.25 a page to pay for shrimp fried rice in Chinatown. He got his bachelor's and master's in mechanical engineering. Then he took the PhD qualifying exam. He failed. He took it again. Failed again. MIT's rules allowed only two attempts. His academic career was over at 24. He took a job at a small semiconductor company called Sylvania. Not because he loved chips. Because he needed a paycheck. Three years later his team got shut down. He moved to Texas Instruments. He turned a production line with almost zero yield into a working operation within months. TI noticed. They promoted him. Then promoted him again. Over 25 years he climbed to Senior VP of TI's entire global semiconductor business. Third most powerful person in the company. TI sent him to Stanford to finish the PhD that MIT wouldn't give him. This time he passed with flying colors. In the late 1970s, TI shifted away from semiconductors and into consumer electronics. Chang disagreed with the move. TI launched a personal computer called the TI-99/4. It was an embarrassing failure. Chang ran the consumer division. He took the blame. They moved him to a nothing role. Director of Quality and Productivity. His bonus was cut. His seniority was reduced. He described it himself: "put out to pasture." He resigned in 1983. He was 52. He took a job as president of General Instrument. That lasted about a year. The CEO wanted him to flip small companies. Chang wanted to build things. He was asked to leave. He was 54. Then Taiwan's government came calling. They wanted someone to build a semiconductor industry from scratch. Chang accepted. He left the country he'd lived in for 36 years. His idea was radical. A company that only makes chips for other companies. No competing with your own customers. A pure-play foundry. He asked Intel to invest. They said no. He asked TI. No. Motorola. No. AMD, Panasonic, Sony. All no. Only Philips, a Dutch electronics company, said yes. In February 1987, Morris Chang founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company with $220 million. He was 55. Then Intel's Andy Grove visited. He looked at the production quality. He placed an order. TSMC makes the chips inside your phone right now. It makes the majority of the world's advanced AI chips. Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD. They all depend on the company a 55-year-old built after failing twice and getting fired twice.