Asia hands the US a semis-led risk-off baton — TSMC's capex bomb and Korea's memory wreckage are the whole story into Friday's open.
The US just closed soft: Nasdaq -1.47% to 25,882, SMH -4%, Arm -5%, Alphabet -4% on a reported Gemini 3.5 Pro delay. The trigger was not weak earnings — TSMC beat but hiked 2026 capex to $60-64B from $52-56B, and the tape read that as peak-cycle overbuild rather than demand confirmation. That fear routes straight into Asia's July 17 open through the foundry and memory channel.
Korea is ground zero. KOSPI already took an 8.95% circuit-breaker hit on July 13 on SK Hynix HBM peak-out fears, and a fresh SMH -4% close sets Samsung and SK Hynix up soft again — reading back to SOX, Micron and NVDA into the US cash open. Nikkei (-2.8% to 66,836 last) and CSI 300 (~4,698, -1.9%) offer no offset; only Hang Seng, bid on property and stimulus, is decoupled and trading its own book. USD/JPY at 162.1 is easing as July Fed-hike odds fade — carry intact, but JPY firming is the crack to watch.
The risk: Korean memory is deeply oversold after the circuit-breaker crash, so a stabilization bid in Samsung and SK Hynix overnight would flip the semis read and hand the US an oversold-bounce open instead. A USD/JPY break under 161.5 would swap that for carry-off risk-off.