Samsung Electronics is set to report its 2024 second-quarter results on Tuesday, with the market looking for operating profit of 86 trillion won ($56.35 billion), up 18-fold from a year earlier. Expectations are being driven by AI-led demand for memory chips and tight supply, which have helped lift South Korea’s stock market 92% so far this year. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dipped 0.1%, while Asian tech shares broadly strengthened. MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan rose 0.4%.

Philippines inflation is still running above 6% year on year, pressured by El Nino risks and food prices, keeping the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas hawkish. The article forecasts two additional BSP rate hikes, taking the policy rate to 5.25% by the end of 2026. Elsewhere, USD/JPY is fluctuating around 162 as markets watch whether Japanese authorities intervene to curb excessive yen weakness. The piece also flags upcoming U.S. macro releases including ISM services, the FOMC minutes and CPI, without reporting results.

Gold prices were steady near a two-week high, with spot gold at $4,175.02 an ounce and COMEX August futures up 1.5% to $4,186.80. The move followed a sharp slowdown in U.S. job growth in June and downward revisions to the prior two months’ payroll figures. Markets trimmed the perceived odds of a September Federal Reserve rate hike to about 55% from above 60%. Silver also climbed for a fifth straight session to $62.4773 an ounce, while platinum and palladium extended gains.

Ripple’s latest push in Africa centers on taking a stake in Flutterwave at a reported $3.3 billion valuation and integrating its stablecoin, the XRP Ledger, and its payments network into Flutterwave’s infrastructure in Nigeria. The move is framed as a technical rollout rather than a pure financial investment, with an explicit first-market implementation in Nigeria. Analyst Dr. Kamilah Stevenson described Flutterwave as “Africa’s biggest payment system” and said the integration would wire Ripple’s rails into real-world money flows.

Samsung Electronics confirmed plans to raise DRAM prices by about 20% in the third quarter, while SK Hynix moved ahead with a $29 billion American depositary receipts listing. Hon Hai Precision Industry, an Nvidia server assembly partner, reported quarterly sales up 40% year on year. South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.8%, leading gains across Asia-Pacific. The developments provided a clear earnings and pricing catalyst for chip stocks, benefiting Samsung, SK Hynix and the broader Korean index.

ASX-listed CDC Data Centres is bidding for Anthropic’s 1.4GW, $25.8b AI data centre tender in Australia, with potential for a 500MW award. CDC’s independent valuation rose 23.6% to A$18.5b in June, lifting the value of Infratil’s 49.7% stake to A$9.2b. CDC has also secured a separate 555MW, 30-year contract.

Meta is nearing a $6.5 billion agreement with Samsung’s foundry unit to manufacture its next-generation 2nm custom AI chips. The company also announced Meta Compute, a cloud infrastructure business that will sell enterprise customers access to its AI data center capacity. The moves underscore a strategic shift from an advertising-led platform toward an AI infrastructure supplier. The article did not disclose the signing status of the agreement or details of initial orders, framing the update as directional rather than an immediate execution catalyst.

Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran may have ended, but the resulting jump in Middle East geopolitical risk has lifted the projected path for global interest rates for years. Bloomberg Economics says the short-term closure of the Strait of Hormuz and related energy-supply disruptions have added to inflation stickiness. In its guide to 23 major central banks, it sees several policy-rate endpoints more than 50 basis points above pre-war expectations over the coming years.