HP's China shift and Infineon in Malaysia

Hi everyone, this is Lauly, sending greetings from Taipei. We've been seeing dark clouds in the sky most afternoons, much like those gathering over volatile Asian stock markets in the past few trading days.

Last Friday, just minutes before stepping into an interview, two industry friends told me that the scheduled shipment of Nvidia's new GB200 system had encountered some problems. When I finally got out of the interview two and half hours later, the news was all over the internet and the Taiwan Stock Exchange had shed more than 1,000 points. My jaw dropped.

The pessimistic atmosphere extended to Monday, as Japan's benchmark index recorded its worst-ever daily sell-off on a points basis.

Taiwan's TAIEX also recorded its biggest ever drop, falling more than 1,800 points, or 8.35%.

The plunge came a day after Taiwan took gold in men's double badminton at the Paris Olympics. Many people here joked that to celebrate the island's first gold of this Games, everyone was having a sale -- including the stock market.

Asian stock markets bounced back on Tuesday and Wednesday, but several factors were behind the recent volatility: Disappointing results from big tech companies, including Intel's decision to cut 15,000 jobs, fears of a U.S. recession, a sudden strengthening of the Japanese yen and escalating tensions in the Middle East.

I recently went to the earnings conference of Delta Electronics, the world's leading provider of power management solutions for AI data centers, consumer electronics and automobiles. The company trimmed its forecast for its electric vehicle business for a second time to "just a little bit of growth this year," while Chairman and CEO Ping Cheng said it was hard to tell when EV markets would overcome their