Senior Credit Analyst, Lucror Analytics

Leonard Law, CFA

Senior Credit Analyst

High Yield Experts

Lucror Analytics

Lucror Analytics is a leading credit and ESG research specialist and a provider of technology solutions for differentiated fixed income strategies. Our roots are in bottom-up fundamental credit analysis with a specialization in high yield corporate credits from Europe, Asia and Latin America. We are one of few research specialists integrating ESG considerations with fundamental credit research through a dedicated ESG platform. Our ESG assessment covers five key criteria: Disclosure, E,S, & G Pillars, Controversies, ESG Impact on Credit and ESG Momentum.

Recognizing the importance and value-add of Factor Investing in fixed income, Lucror developed the Smart Quant Navigator (SQN), an intuitive platform that helps clients devise and implement factor-based strategies ranging from pure quant to active fundamental, with integrated ESG.

Our company has been at the forefront of developments in the fixed income markets, identifying opportunities and consistently delivering new products and value-adding solutions to clients. Lucror has close relationships with the largest and most reputable asset managers, family offices, hedge funds, investment and wealth managers globally.

Credit

<ul>
<li>In today's Morning Views publication we comment on developments of the following high yield issuers: MGM China, SK Hynix, Tata Steel, Vedanta Resources</li>
<li>Short-end UST yields rose slightly yesterday, extending Wednesday’s post-Fed curve flattening trend. The yield on the 2Y UST rose 2 bps to 3.96%, while the yield on the 10Y UST was stable at 4.38%. Equities ended the day mixed.</li>
<li>The S&amp;P 500 erased a rally earlier in the day on renewed tariff concerns, declining 0.4% to 6,339. The Nasdaq closed flat at 21,122, after Microsoft and Meta Platforms reported solid results.</li>
</ul>


In today's Morning Views publication we comment on developments of the following high yield issuers: MGM China, SK Hynix, Tata Steel, Vedanta Resources
Short-end UST yields rose slightly yesterday, extending Wednesday’s post-Fed curve flattening trend. The yield on the 2Y UST rose 2 bps to 3.96%, while the yield on the 10Y UST was stable at 4.38%. Equities ended the day mixed.
The S&amp;P 500 erased a rally earlier in the day on renewed tariff concerns, declining 0.4% to 6,339. The Nasdaq closed flat at 21,122, after Microsoft and Meta Platforms reported solid results.


Technology / Semiconductor / Internet Research

Nicolas Baratte

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>OP pre-announced, the details aren’t inspiring. Margins decline in TV, Semi. Only Smartphone is resilient. 2H25 demand outlook is weak for TV, Smartphone.</li>
<li>Confident tone on HBM growth, qualifications, ASP increase. Several contradictions: Samsung endorses theory of HBM price pressure (how’s that positive?); HBM3E is already 80% of HBM revenue (where’s the upside?)</li>
<li>Consensus is revising up slowly, stock is going up sharply. This assumes a large turnaround in memory / HBM / Foundry. </li>
</ul>


OP pre-announced, the details aren’t inspiring. Margins decline in TV, Semi. Only Smartphone is resilient. 2H25 demand outlook is weak for TV, Smartphone.
Confident tone on HBM growth, qualifications, ASP increase. Several contradictions: Samsung endorses theory of HBM price pressure (how’s that positive?); HBM3E is already 80% of HBM revenue (where’s the upside?)
Consensus is revising up slowly, stock is going up sharply. This assumes a large turnaround in memory / HBM / Foundry. 


Samsung 2Q25: Poor Quarter, Poor Outlook for 2H25, Management Bullish on HBM / Foundry Catch Up

Chief Executive Officer, Emmer Capital Partners Limited

Manishi Raychaudhuri

Chief Executive Officer

Emmer Capital Partners Limited

Emmer Capital Partners is an Asia Pacific focused financial advisory firm engaging in strategic financial asset allocation advice, bespoke thematic research and advising early-stage companies and connecting them to investors. Emmer Capital provides macro-economic and multi-asset investment strategy inputs to institutions, family offices, private wealth managers, private equity, and corporate boards directly and through independent research platforms. Emmer Capital also advises a wide range of startup companies on fund raising and business strategy. Emmer Capital's active engagement with the print and electronic media reaches a broad spectrum of investors across the globe.

Cross Asset Strategy

<ul>
<li>Asian currencies bottomed out in early April. FII flows turned positive in May. Flows into Taiwan are recovering the fastest, followed by those into Korea. India's recovery is relatively tepid. </li>
<li>Flows into ASEAN remain negative - the lack of recovery, we think, is due to lack of macroeconomic catalysts, declining EPS estimates and trade related worries. We remain underweight ASEAN.</li>
<li>We are overweight Korea (recovering EPS, cheapest, flows accelerating). We like Taiwanese tech, key beneficiary of investors’ renewed AI enthusiasm. Overweight on India, despite its overvaluation, stems from bottom-up ideas.</li>
</ul>


Asian currencies bottomed out in early April. FII flows turned positive in May. Flows into Taiwan are recovering the fastest, followed by those into Korea. India's recovery is relatively tepid. 
Flows into ASEAN remain negative - the lack of recovery, we think, is due to lack of macroeconomic catalysts, declining EPS estimates and trade related worries. We remain underweight ASEAN.
We are overweight Korea (recovering EPS, cheapest, flows accelerating). We like Taiwanese tech, key beneficiary of investors’ renewed AI enthusiasm. Overweight on India, despite its overvaluation, stems from bottom-up ideas.


Asian Equities: Foreign Flows – Some Strength, Some Sustained Disappointments

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements, Aequitas Research

Sumeet Singh

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements

IPOs and Placements coverage across Asia Pacific

Aequitas Research

We cover all listing across the Asia Pacific along with follow-up placements. As of Dec 2020, our team had covered 539 IPOs with a hit rate of 73.5% and 685 placements with a hit rate of 66.8%.

We combine fundamental bottom-up views with our proprietary quantitative framework to provide a holistic coverage across new listings and placements. Our coverage includes pre-IPO notes before the deal is launched, follow-up analysis once the deal is live and post-listing trading analysis as well.

Equity Capital Markets

GigaDevice Semiconductor  / Equity Capital Markets

<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/gigadevice-semiconductor-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:27253:1" rel="noopener">GigaDevice Semiconductor (603986 CH)</a> (GD), an IC design house, aims to raise around US$1bn in its H-share listing.</li>
<li>GD is a leading specialty memory chip and MCU company in mainland China.</li>
<li>In this note, we look at its past performance and other deal dynamics that might impact the listing.</li>
</ul>



GigaDevice Semiconductor (603986 CH) (GD), an IC design house, aims to raise around US$1bn in its H-share listing.
GD is a leading specialty memory chip and MCU company in mainland China.
In this note, we look at its past performance and other deal dynamics that might impact the listing.


GigaDevice A/H Listing -Strong Long Term Record but Exposed to the Memory Cycle

<ul>
<li>Google: increased 2025 Capex ($75bn -&gt; 85bn). Capex will increase in 2026. Higher capex is justified by “strong demand for Cloud products and services“.</li>
<li>Meta: last quarter increased 2025 Capex ($62.5bn -&gt; 68bn). This quarter, more modest $1bn increase to $69bn. Meta expects “another year of similarly significant capital expenditures dollar growth in 2026”.</li>
<li>Microsoft: FY26 Capex growth will moderate compared to FY25 (FY25 Capex increased 58% YoY).</li>
</ul>


Google: increased 2025 Capex ($75bn -&gt; 85bn). Capex will increase in 2026. Higher capex is justified by “strong demand for Cloud products and services“.
Meta: last quarter increased 2025 Capex ($62.5bn -&gt; 68bn). This quarter, more modest $1bn increase to $69bn. Meta expects “another year of similarly significant capital expenditures dollar growth in 2026”.
Microsoft: FY26 Capex growth will moderate compared to FY25 (FY25 Capex increased 58% YoY).


Hyperscalers 2Q25: Revenue Growth Accelerates, Cloud Revenues Accelerate, Capex Higher

South Korea

SK Hynix Inc. provides products and services for the electronic components industry. The Company manufactures semiconductors, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), NAND flash memory, and static random access memory (SRAM) chips.

Price Gauge
52-week Range	0.00 - 0.00
Market Cap (USDm)	0.00
P/E	0.00
Dividend (Yield)	0.00

SK Hynix (000660 KS)

Lucror Analytics - Morning Views Asia

In today's Morning Views publication we comment on developments of the following high yield issuers: MGM China, SK Hynix, Tata Steel, Vedanta...

Lucror Analytics

Samsung 2Q25: Poor Quarter, Poor Outlook for 2H25, Management Bullish on HBM / Foundry Catch Up

Samsung poor 2Q, poor 2H outlook. Optimism on HBM growth and foundry catch up. Consensus expects that, stock trading at average PEx

Nicolas Baratte

Asian Equities: Foreign Flows – Some Strength, Some Sustained Disappointments

Interesting reallocation by foreign investors in July – Korea bought $3.06bn, Taiwan bought $7.05 bn, India sold $2.03bn. AI capex enthusiasm is...

Manishi Raychaudhuri

GigaDevice A/H Listing -Strong Long Term Record but Exposed to the Memory Cycle

GigaDevice Semiconductor (603986 CH) (GD), an IC design house, aims to raise around US$1bn in its H-share listing. In this note, we look at the...

Sumeet Singh

Hyperscalers 2Q25: Revenue Growth Accelerates, Cloud Revenues Accelerate, Capex Higher

Google, Meta and Microsoft will increase in 2026. Don’t look for complications, some firms have 70-100% market share: Nvidia, TSMC, SK Hynix and...

Nicolas Baratte

Price Gauge

52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)

Lucror Analytics - Morning Views Asia

In today's Morning Views publication we comment on developments of the following high yield issuers: MGM China, SK Hynix, Tata Steel, Vedanta...

Lucror Analytics

Samsung 2Q25: Poor Quarter, Poor Outlook for 2H25, Management Bullish on HBM / Foundry Catch Up

Samsung poor 2Q, poor 2H outlook. Optimism on HBM growth and foundry catch up. Consensus expects that, stock trading at average PEx

Nicolas Baratte

Asian Equities: Foreign Flows – Some Strength, Some Sustained Disappointments

Interesting reallocation by foreign investors in July – Korea bought $3.06bn, Taiwan bought $7.05 bn, India sold $2.03bn. AI capex enthusiasm is...

Manishi Raychaudhuri

GigaDevice A/H Listing -Strong Long Term Record but Exposed to the Memory Cycle

GigaDevice Semiconductor (603986 CH) (GD), an IC design house, aims to raise around US$1bn in its H-share listing. In this note, we look at the...

Sumeet Singh

Hyperscalers 2Q25: Revenue Growth Accelerates, Cloud Revenues Accelerate, Capex Higher

​Google, Meta and Microsoft will increase in 2026. Don’t look for complications, some firms have 70-100% market share: Nvidia, TSMC, SK Hynix and...

Nicolas Baratte

Google, Meta and Microsoft will increase in 2026. Don’t look for complications, some firms have 70-100% market share: Nvidia, TSMC, SK Hynix and...