Apple's price hikes have swept the secondhand market, with some MacBook products seeing price increases of 1,000 yuan in just 10 days.
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Some large-scale AI models in China are 90% cheaper than those in the US; Chinese AI's high cost-effectiveness is capturing the US market.
According to a report by CNBC on July 7th, influenced by the continued price increases of models from leading US AI vendors, Chinese AI large-scale models are rapidly expanding their application scale in US enterprises due to their cost-effectiveness advantage. Industry insiders point out that the performance of some leading open-source and open weighted models in China is currently about 6 to 9 months behind the technology of top-tier US models such as OpenAI and Anthropic, while the price is 60% to 90% lower, and they can cover the vast majority of routine AI tasks, thus gaining popularity among US enterprises. According to statistics from the AI model aggregation platform OpenRouter, since February 8th of this year, the proportion of Chinese AI models used by US enterprises has exceeded 30% weekly, reaching a peak of 46%; while the average proportion in the previous 12 months was 11%. Another industry statistic shows that in the first week of the launch of Zhipu's latest large-scale model GLM 5.2, the daily average number of word calls increased by 27 times and the number of customers increased by 80 times, making it the fastest-deployed model on the platform in 2026; US AI startup Lindy has significantly reduced costs after switching all its AI business to DeepSeek models, and expects to save millions of dollars within a few months. (CCTV Finance)
Trump pressures retailers to cut prices to combat inflation, demanding supermarkets lower beef prices.
According to a report by the WSJ on July 8th, the Trump administration recently pressured major supermarket chains such as Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons to lower beef prices during the Independence Day shopping season to alleviate food inflation pressures. Walmart subsequently announced price reductions on thousands of items, with ground beef prices dropping by up to 12%. Trump later stated that Walmart was lowering prices "at the request of the government" and called on other retailers to follow suit. This action is part of the Trump administration's efforts to control inflation. In addition to pushing for lower food prices, Trump has previously called for lower gasoline prices, capped credit card interest rates, and reduced drug prices, hoping to alleviate voter dissatisfaction with high prices before the midterm elections. However, with U.S. cattle herds at a 75-year low, tight supply continues to push up beef prices. U.S. ground beef prices rose 12% year-on-year in May, indicating that food inflation pressures have not yet fully eased.
Bitcoin price tags $86K as analysis sees crypto in ‘new bull market’
Bitcoin crossed the $86,000 mark for the first time since late January as falling oil prices and concerns over supply lifted US stocks.
Bitcoin bear market ‘over’ as price metric copies 2023 recovery: CryptoQuant CEO
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Strategy’s $66B Bitcoin machine hinges on capital markets, not BTC price: Report
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Bernstein: The storage bull market could continue into 2027, but the steepest part of the rise has passed.
According to Mars Finance, on July 8th, Wall Street investment bank Bernstein released its monthly global memory tracking report, stating that DRAM contract prices continued to rise month-on-month in June, implying that the average price of traditional DRAM in Q2 2026 will increase by approximately 74% compared to Q1. Demand from servers and mobile devices remains the main driver, with Server DRAM prices expected to rise by approximately 60% to 67% in Q2, and Mobile DRAM by nearly 80%. The spot market also shows tight supply. PC DRAM spot prices rose 5.6% to 11.5% month-on-month in June, while Server DRAM rose 6.1% to 26.4%. The report stated that Server DDR5 performed particularly strongly, with spot prices significantly higher than contract prices, indicating that demand from AI and cloud service providers is still absorbing the new capacity shifted by suppliers to the server market. However, Bernstein also cautioned that the rate of price increases will slow significantly in Q3. TrendForce predicts that traditional DRAM price increases will slow to 13% to 18% in the third quarter, down from the steep increases in the second quarter. PC, mobile phone, and consumer electronics customers are reducing configurations or adjusting purchasing paces; while demand disruption is not yet fully apparent, the report believes it will eventually occur. The situation for NAND is more divergent. In June, NAND wafer spot prices actually fell by 3% to 4%, while wafer contract prices rose only slightly by 0.3% to 3.7%. However, strong price increases in mobile NAND and SSDs will still drive overall NAND contract prices up by about 60% in the second quarter. Bernstein stated that SSD and mobile storage price increases could reach 70% to 80%, offsetting the weakness on the wafer side. The key variable in this storage cycle remains AI. Cloud service providers and server customers continue to prioritize securing supply; some US CSPs have completed long-term agreement negotiations, while Chinese CSPs are still negotiating. Long-term agreements help smooth future price declines but may also limit the room for some suppliers to continue raising prices. In its investment conclusions, Bernstein maintains positive ratings for Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and SanDisk, while remaining cautious on Kioxia. The report believes that storage prices may remain strong until 2027, but will gradually normalize from the second half of 2027 to 2028 as long-term agreements take effect and new capacity comes online.