Russia's central bank foreign-exchange and gold reserves for the week to Aug. 14 were $755.6 billion, up from $740.0 billion the previous week.

JP Morgan analyst Jay Kwon estimates SK Hynix could deploy at least 180 tln won (~$130bn) in additional shareholder returns by 2027, about 16% of current market value, excluding a previously announced 40 tln won buyback-and-cancellation. SK Hynix has shifted policy from capping payouts at up to 50% of 2025-27 cumulative free cash flow to “over 50%,” effectively removing the prior constraint, JP Morgan says. The 180 tln won figure is a JP Morgan projection based on adjusted payout assumptions and prospective cash generation, not an official company commitment. Kwon said the worst appears to be past, expects mid-term investor sentiment to improve and recommended increasing positions.

TSMC has completed development validation of its 1.6nm A16 process and targets volume production in Q4. A16 uses backside power-delivery technology (Super Power Rail, SPR) to separate power and signal routing, feeding power from the wafer backside to reduce routing bottlenecks and improve energy efficiency and performance while remaining compatible with existing designs. Targeting AI and high-performance computing, A16 is cited as delivering roughly +8–10% performance at equal power versus enhanced 2nm N2P, −15–20% power at equal performance, and ~8–10% higher density. A16 is positioned as an intermediate step toward 1.4nm A14, which TSMC targets for 2028 production. On the 11th TSMC’s board approved roughly $29.44 billion in capital expenditure for advanced process and packaging capacity (about 41 trillion KRW).