🇰🇷 South Korea · Finance & markets, AI, Economy
112 storiesS&P 500 closes above 7,800 for first time; Nasdaq also at record
New York's three main indices closed higher on Oct 6, with the S&P 500 ending above 7,800 for the first time at 7,818.93 and the Nasdaq Composite at a record 27,599.79. Korean outlets attributed the gains to third-quarter earnings expectati…
Musk confirms Terafab-TSMC talks; Intel shares fall, TSMC hits record
Elon Musk confirmed on X that his chip project Terafab and Taiwan's TSMC are holding talks, saying it is “just discussions” but that something may come of it. TSMC has not issued an official position. After the reports, Intel shares fell wh…
Foreign investment banks raise South Korea 2026 growth forecast to 3.5%
Eight major overseas investment banks now expect South Korea's economy to grow 3.5% in 2026 on average, up 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the International Finance Center. All eight forecast growth of at least 3%, …
Ark's Cathie Wood Repeats $1.5 Million Bitcoin Forecast for 2030
Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood has reiterated a forecast that bitcoin will reach $1.5 million by 2030, about 1665% above the roughly $85,000 level where the reports say it was trading. Wood points to institutional inflows, a more favourable US …
OpenAI CEO Altman says some AI risks must be accepted, drawing line with Anthropic
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said in an interview with Politico’s technology podcast “Decoded” that society must accept some negative outcomes to secure the benefits of artificial intelligence and keep humans in control. He described O…
Korean court suspends market-cap delisting decisions; exchange halts two more exits
Seoul Southern District Court Civil Division 51 granted injunctions on Oct 2 suspending the Korea Exchange's delisting decisions against KOSPI-listed Joo Yeon Tech and KOSDAQ-listed KM Pharma until a main ruling. The court questioned the 45…
Nasdaq closes at record high as AI stocks rally despite rising Treasury yields
US stocks rose on October 5 local time, with the Nasdaq Composite closing at a record high as technology and AI-related shares gained despite rising Treasury yields. Yonhap reported the Dow rose 0.18% to 51,267.90 and the S&P 500 gained 0.6…
Wall Street banks start selling $60bn Anthropic AI-chip loan, FT reports
Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have begun selling part of a $60bn loan that funds Anthropic's leasing of Google tensor processing units, according to the Financial Times, as reported by Yonhap. The sale is described as the la…
Weak US jobs data lift October Fed rate-hold bets; bitcoin slips below $86,000
US employment data came in weaker than expected, strengthening expectations the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates at its October meeting, with Kukmin Ilbo putting the odds of a hold at 78 percent. Major cryptocurrencies that had rise…
US August trade deficit rises 13.7% to $105.6bn, largest since March 2025
The US goods and services trade deficit widened 13.7% in August from the previous month to $105.6bn, the largest gap since March 2025 and above the $102bn Dow Jones consensus, according to the Commerce Department. Imports reached a record $…
Nvidia sets second straight record close; Korean AI supply chain shares rally
Nvidia closed 2.1% higher at $238.90 on October 5 in New York, a second consecutive record close, lifting its market capitalisation to about $5.76 trillion and putting the first $6 trillion valuation within reach. Korean outlets also report…
Musk regains trillionaire status as SpaceX shares jump 7.63%
SpaceX shares closed 7.63% higher at $171.09 on Oct. 5, their highest level in about three months, after Morgan Stanley set a $300 target price. Forbes put Elon Musk's net worth at $1.046 trillion (about 1,400 trillion won), returning him t…
MakinaRocks installs on-device AI assistant on Navy frigate Pohang
MakinaRocks said it has installed an “equipment operation AI assistant” on the Pohang frigate of the Navy’s First Fleet Command and begun trial operation. The system runs on the company’s own Runway AI operating system as a lightweight on-d…
South Korea opens AI Festa 26 at Seoul's COEX, running Oct. 6-8
AI Festa 26, South Korea's national AI exhibition, opened on Oct. 6 at COEX in Seoul and runs through Oct. 8, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT. The event features AI foundation models from LG AI Research, SK Telecom and Upstage, al…
New York comptroller projects Wall Street profits above $90bn, record bonuses
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimated the state's securities industry will earn more than $90 billion (about 120 trillion won) this year, up from $65.1 billion last year, and that Wall Street bonuses will rise again to a reco…
South Korea's FX reserves fall $1.72bn in September on US investment funding
South Korea's foreign exchange reserves stood at $440.56bn at the end of September, down $17.2bn from $442.28bn a month earlier, the Bank of Korea said on Oct 6 — the first decline in four months. The central bank cited a fall in financial …
OpenAI to add text watermarks to ChatGPT and Codex output in EU
OpenAI said it will introduce a text watermarking technology called Textgrain to mark AI-generated writing, applying it to ChatGPT and Codex output in the European Union within weeks to meet the EU AI Act’s transparency rules. The company s…
South Korea to spend 4.7 trillion won on frontier AI while keeping Dokpamo
The government plans to invest 4.7 trillion won next year in developing frontier AI models while continuing its Dokpamo independent AI foundation model project on a separate track. Dokpamo's third evaluation in February 2027 will still sele…
Wikimedia Foundation finds unauthorized OpenAI agent activity on Wikipedia
The Wikimedia Foundation said it found unauthorized activity by OpenAI's AI agents on the Wikipedia platform, and believes service disruptions there in May were triggered by agents scraping millions of pages and querying hundreds of thousan…
Second National Growth Fund round sells 316.2 bln won in four days, 52.7% of target
The second round of South Korea's state-backed National Participation National Growth Fund sold 316.2 billion won in its first four days, 52.7% of its 600 billion won target, the Financial Services Commission said. The remaining 283.43 bill…