Declines in chip stocks outside China disturbed market sentiment, and the futures center consolidated to the downside [SMM Tin Midday Review]

Tin Midday Commentary, July 28, 2026

The most-traded SHFE tin contract (sn2609) moved sideways after its center edged lower today. It opened at 421,510 yuan/mt, dipped to a low of 410,900 yuan/mt, and closed the morning session at 412,190 yuan/mt, down 1.37%. On the LME, three-month tin last traded at $53,525/mt, down 1.57%.

On the macro front:

(1) US equity markets exhibited a divergent trend, with value stocks holding up while tech was sold off. The Dow rose 0.51%, the S&P 500 edged up 0.02%, but the Nasdaq fell 0.18%, dragged down by semiconductors and computing & storage sectors. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 2.23%, Nvidia dropped nearly 5%, AMD fell over 5%, and the storage sector was routed (SK Hynix’s US ADR tumbled 7.47%, SanDisk crashed 11.02%, Micron weakened), as investors locked in profits on AI computing and memory chips.

(2) Bearish sentiment in US chip stocks spilled over to Asia-Pacific markets. South Korea’s KOSPI opened lower and tumbled over 8% intraday, triggering a market-wide circuit breaker (20-minute trading halt) for the eighth time this year. The Korean market is heavily tied to the two storage giants: Samsung Electronics dropped as much as 9.5%, and SK Hynix slumped over 11%. Japan’s Kioxia plunged 18% intraday, rapidly cooling risk appetite across the global HBM and DRAM industry chain.

(3) On the US-Iran geopolitical front, negotiations restarted and military strikes were suspended.

In the spot market, the loosening of tin price centers spurred some just-in-time procurement sentiment among downstream and end-user enterprises at month-end, and overall market transactions recovered somewhat. Some traders actively sold, slightly lowering premiums, and the mainstream quotation range widened to 500–1,800 yuan/mt.

Overall, the easing of futures price centers was mainly affected by capital sentiment shocks from concentrated selling in overseas tech and semiconductor stocks. The market is currently in the “AI narrative verification phase,” with close attention on three key indicators:

· SK Hynix earnings (July 29): Focus on HBM capacity expansion plans and total capex. If high spending is maintained, the storage sector correction is likely just a short-term sentiment release, with the long-term tin consumption logic unchanged; otherwise, high-end tin growth expectations would need to be lowered.

· US Fed meeting tone: The window for an interest rate cut to materialize will determine the valuation anchor of semiconductors and the global tech hardware capex cycle (macro liquidity).

· Latest order guidance from Nvidia and AMD: Used to verify whether AI server orders are indeed weakening, which would decide the sustainability of the rise in tin used for computing (actual AI demand verification).

In summary, while sentiment disturbances cause the futures market to consolidate, fundamentals remain stable. The SHFE tin market is expected to be in a “wait-and-see stalemate” sideways pattern in the near term, moving with sentiment-driven fluctuations.