Your Week in the Market (July 13-17): Chip Sell-Off, Oil Spike and Softer US Inflation

Global markets closed the week of July 13-17 in a cautious, mostly-red mood. A two-day sell-off in semiconductors, fresh tension around oil and the Strait of Hormuz, and softer-than-expected US inflation set the tone. For Latin American investors, a stronger dollar and mostly lower regional stocks capped it off. Here is what moved, why it mattered, and what to watch next week.

Chips and AI: semiconductors sold off for two straight days. SK Hynix dropped around 15%, and the new Chinese model Kimi K3 revived fears of a "DeepSeek moment" - the worry that cheaper AI could undercut expensive chipmakers. Apple (AAPL) reclaimed the crown as the world's most valuable company, overtaking Nvidia (NVDA).

Mixed earnings: Morgan Stanley (MS) and ASML (ASML) impressed, while IBM (IBM) suffered its worst-ever single-day drop (around 25%). Netflix (NFLX) fell roughly 9% after trimming its guidance, and PayPal (PYPL) jumped 17% on a reported US$53 billion takeover offer.

Latin America: regional exchanges were mostly in the red with a firm dollar. The US said it would apply a 25% tariff on Brazil starting July 22, and a winter storm in Chile put copper - a key Chilean export - on alert.

The week's largest swings came from small, speculative names - a reminder that eye-catching percentage moves usually carry outsized volatility and risk. On the winning side, Sadot Group (SDOT) rose 77.5%, Southland (SLND) gained 67.3%, and Callan JMB (CJMB) added 41.7%. On the losing side, T3 Defense (DFNS) fell 65.0%, Jet.AI (JTAI) dropped 62.6%, and VCI Global (VCIG) lost 58.9%.

Microsoft (MSFT) screened as relatively cheap this week, trading around $393.82 at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 23.4x - well below its historical multiple near 33x - even as its Azure cloud and AI business (Copilot) keep growing at double digits. The price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E, tells you how much you pay for each dollar of a company's profit, so a lower number can mean a stock is cheaper relative to its own history. Other names that screened at modest multiples included Meta META and BMW BMW.DE.

Big Tech results from Alphabet and Tesla will test whether the AI trade can steady after the chip wobble, while Mexico's inflation print is the Latin American number worth watching for clues on the local rate path.