Korea Economy Reader(EN)

Hanwha Ocean Went From Over 150,000 Won to the 80,000s Hanwha Ocean's stock has been cut roughly in half, falling from above 150,000 won to the 80,000-won range. A single piece of news, that it lost out on a submarine deal with Canada valued at around 60 trillion won, sent the stock down more than 20% in a single day. For anyone holding shipbuilding stocks, the natural question is whether to sell now or whether this drop is actually an opportunity. But before selling on impulse, there's something worth checking first. What does Hanwha Ocean actually need to prove for this decline to end? In this piece, we'll break down exactly what the Canadian submarine loss meant, and use the data to check whether Hanwha Ocean can find its footing for a rebound in shipbuilding stocks. What Happened Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on July 6 (local time) at the Halifax naval base in Nova Scotia that Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) had been selected as...

"Black Monday" wasn't an exaggeration. On July 13, KOSPI plunged 669 points, or 8.95%, in a single session, closing at 6,806.93. Just three weeks after hitting an all-time high of 9,114.55 on June 22, the index had fallen more than 20% from that peak, tipping into technical bear-market territory. KOSPI's total market cap shed 546 trillion won that day alone, and the market triggered its seventh circuit breaker of the year. Three triggers pulled at once. President Trump announced the reinstatement of a naval blockade on Iran along with a proposed 20% "toll" on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, while single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix kept distorting supply and demand inside the domestic market, amplifying volatility. On top of that, news broke that Korean banks had collected record-high fees from ETF trust sales in the first half of the year, leaving retail investors staring at an uncomfortable question: who was m...

  On July 13, the day KOSPI plunged nearly 9% in a single session, a very different kind of news quietly dropped from Samsung Electronics. A senior engineer at Samsung's foundry division confirmed on social media that the Tesla-Samsung AI5 chip has completed tape-out. AI5 will be built on Samsung's 2-nanometer process at the Taylor, Texas fab, with the post noting the chip would soon appear in Tesla's newest products. This was the first time anyone inside Samsung had publicly confirmed a production timeline for AI5. In a session where the index was down double digits and every screen was red, news like this simply doesn't get priced in. But this is the signal that Samsung's Taylor fab, a facility that swallowed tens of billions of dollars and had earned a reputation as a money pit, is finally about to start earning its keep. It may also mark the starting point for Samsung's foundry business to get re-rated on its own merits, separate from memory. Here...

  The KOSPI just delivered one of the wildest trading sessions of the year. After plunging more than 7% intraday, the index rebounded sharply the next day by more than 5%. Meanwhile, earnings expectations for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix remain historically strong. So why is the Korean stock market moving like a crisis is unfolding? The answer is not simple panic. It is a combination of foreign selling, AI investment revaluation, sector rotation, and a weakening Korean won. For global investors watching South Korea, this is not just a local market story. It is a real-time stress test of the AI semiconductor trade. The KOSPI Volatility in Numbers On July 6, the KOSPI closed at 8,051.33 , down 0.46% from the previous session. But that closing number hides the real story. During the session, the index climbed as high as 8,327 , then fell to 7,815 , creating a swing of more than 500 points in a single trading day. Foreign investors sold KRW 1.31 trillion , while instit...

"100% Responsible Investment." That has long been one of the National Pension Service's (NPS) guiding principles. Recently, however, a media investigation has brought that slogan back into the spotlight. According to the report, the NPS's domestic equity portfolio appears to closely mirror the KOSPI's market-cap rankings , rather than reflecting active stock selection based on ESG or company quality. Why does this matter? Because this isn't simply another ESG debate. The National Pension Service manages more than KRW 300 trillion in Korean equities , making it the largest institutional investor in South Korea. If you own shares of companies such as Samsung Electronics or SK hynix, the way this capital moves can directly influence your own investment portfolio. In this article, we'll examine what the investigation claims, what the data actually shows, and what investors should pay attention to going forward. Understanding the Source of the Report ...