On July 31, 2026 the KOSPI rose 17.91% — its largest one-day gain ever. In the same KRX session Korean retail investors net sold ₩8.25 trillion while foreigners net bought ₩7.22 trillion. What Korean investors were writing while they sold, why SK Hynix stopped at 29.95%, and why naming the cause of this rally is a trap.
Korea will put ₩20 trillion (about $14 billion) into AI through a new Strategic Investment Account inside KIC — the first time its sovereign wealth fund has been allowed to invest at home. What actually changed, why the money is meant to attract rather than buy, and the five checkpoints that decide whether it works.
On July 30 the won closed at a five-month high while the KOSPI fell for a third day — and Samsung rose 2.4% while SK Hynix fell about 3%. Same currency, same sector, opposite directions.
Record Q2 operating profit of ₩60.5tn. A 24-point intraday swing, a 7.54% close, and a two-day drop of 22.5%. The market didn’t reject the quarter — it hasn’t bought the second half.
The KOSPI fell 10.84% on July 28. In dollars it fell 10.47%. The gap is the won — a position no U.S. investor in Korea has been able to opt out of since 2020.
Nvidia is taking a 4.5% stake in Naver — ₩1.48tn (~$1.01B) via a third-party share issuance, Naver’s first in 22 years.
Korea’s market whipsawed all week: down 4.46% Monday, up 4.40% Thursday to reclaim 7,000 for the first time in six sessions, then down 5.72% Friday.
On July 24 President Lee Jae-myung stood in San Francisco — after meetings with the CEOs of Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic and Broadcom — and declared Korea…
The US wants Korean shipyards, and Korea’s shipbuilding supercycle is real — but “US Navy orders = a jackpot for Korea’s listed shipbuilders” breaks in…
Only about a dozen Korean companies trade as US ADRs — so most of Korea looks unbuyable from a US account. It isn’t.