Korea Market Insights

On Monday, August 24 (U.S. time), Supermicro shares (SMCI) fell -4.22% intraday from the prior close, trading near $35.67. With the previous day's close around $37, the stock slid sharply in a single session. Earnings just hit record levels. Yet the stock tumbled. The reason wasn't domestic—it was Taiwan. Why Taiwan's Prosecutors Are in the Picture On August 24, Taiwan's Jilong District Prosecutors Office indicted nine individuals, including one Nvidia Taiwan employee and two Supermicro Taiwan employees. The charge: illegally exporting U.S. export-controlled AI servers to China. By the numbers: 130 Supermicro B300 servers were ordered. Of those, 74 reached Chinese customers—some via direct shipment, others routed through Indonesia, Japan, and Hong Kong. The remaining 56 were falsely documented as Japan-bound. Taiwan customs detected the irregularities and blocked the exports. Prosecutors said the defendants "conspired for personal gain to illegally e...

On August 24, Micron traded around $900, down roughly 6% to 7% from the previous close of $963.68. The trading session was still in progress, meaning the final decline could widen or narrow. Over recent days, the stock has oscillated around the $900 level. A 6.8% single-day move is significant. Is Micron falling alone? No. Micron, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) have all fallen more than 20% from recent highs. Across the semiconductor sector, $1.5 trillion in market capitalization has disappeared since June 25. Today's decline is not unique to Micron. Questions about the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending are weighing on all three memory suppliers, and today adds a Micron-specific headwind. Today's development: Netlist patent lawsuit Netlist, a memory module manufacturer, filed patent lawsuits against Micron simultaneously at both the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and federal court. The suits target Micr...

Shares of Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd. (128940) are soaring near the 540,000 KRW mark, up 29.96% from the previous trading day . The entire move occurred in a single session—a rally of nearly 30% in one day. This move is too large to attribute to ordinary investor flows. At the time of writing, the KOSPI daily return had not yet been confirmed, but index moves of this magnitude are uncommon. The stock is outpacing the broader market. The rally appears driven by company-specific news concerning Hanmi Pharm. itself. The strongest second-quarter results in 11 years Hanmi Pharm.'s preliminary Q2 2026 earnings, announced July 28, show revenue of 467.2 billion KRW, a 29.3% increase year-over-year. Operating profit reached 131.1 billion KRW, representing a 116.9% increase , and net income totaled 84.1 billion KRW, up 95.5%. Both top-line and operating-profit figures mark the company's highest levels since Q4 2015—a span of 11 years. First-half cumulative revenue stands at ...

POSCO FUTURE M CO., LTD. (003670) was trading near 173,500 won today, up 12.01% from the previous close. This marks intraday action. The 173,500-won level still trails the March–May 2026 analyst target range of 270,000–310,000 won. Still, a double-digit gain in one session is significant. Here's how the stock got here. Daily chart. Today's candlestick shows a pronounced upward wick. What drove today's rally No company announcement or exclusive news tailored to today was identified. To be transparent about it: there wasn't one. Instead, accumulated catalysts from the past three weeks have converged. On August 6–7, the company disclosed a supply agreement with a domestic battery manufacturer for LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cathode material. The contract spans six years, 2027–2032, and covers 190,000+ tons. Industry estimates peg the value at roughly 3 trillion won. It is not yet a final binding contract; the company said detailed terms will be final...

It's Monday morning, August 24, 2026. Last Friday (August 21, local time), the three major U.S. indices all moved higher together—a rare sight. The Dow jumped 517.80 points, or +0.98% , closing at 53,277.01. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both gained 0.43% . But here's the puzzle: stock prices rose, yet Treasury yields climbed as well. Normally, they move opposite. This piece examines why, and what it could mean for Korean markets. Friday's U.S. market heatmap (S&P 500 constituents). Green shows gainers; red shows losers (Finviz convention). Why the Three Major Indices Rose Together Thursday (August 20), the three major indices fell sharply: Dow -1.32%, Nasdaq -1.00%, S&P 500 -0.87%. Treasury yields spiked again. Walmart earnings disappointed, and U.S.-Iran tensions added weight. Friday was the reversal—a day of bargain-hunting buying. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced plans to double the size of long-term Treasury buybacks, from $2 billion per...

SK Hynix closed at 1.73 million won on Aug. 21, up 39,000 won or 2.31% from the previous trading day. The KOSPI rose only 0.88%, meaning this stock outpaced the broader market by more than twofold. The catalyst was specific to the company, not a market-wide phenomenon. Intraday volatility was pronounced. The stock fell as low as 1.669 million won before rallying to 1.773 million won—a swing of more than 100,000 won in a single session. What happened two days earlier? The catalyst surfaced on Aug. 19. After market close, the SK Hynix board approved a ~40 trillion won share buyback and full cancellation . The program targets 24.07 million common shares, representing 3.3% of issued shares—the largest shareholder-return share cancellation in Korean corporate history. The market responded swiftly. On Aug. 20, SK Hynix surged 12.73% to 1.691 million won on the strength of the after-hours announcement, a powerful show of investor appetite. The chart above shows the past th...

The KOSPI plunged from 7,216 to 6,400 before recovering to 6,912 over four trading sessions from Aug. 18–21. 1. The KOSPI ended the week down 0.93%, while KOSDAQ fell 7.25%. 2. On Aug. 19, the market crashed 5.80%; the next day, it rallied 5.89%. A sidecar—which temporarily halts program-trading orders after a sharp futures-market move—was triggered on the sell side, then again on the buy side across consecutive sessions. 3. SK Hynix announced it would repurchase and retire 40 trillion won in shares. Aug. 17 was Chuseok holiday, so trading occurred only four days that week. Yet the intraday swing from peak to trough was 12.75% . The high was 7,216.62 on the morning of Aug. 18; the low was 6,400.81 on the morning of Aug. 19. Tuesday morning was solidly above 7,200 KOSPI opened Aug. 18 up 2.15% and climbed to 7,216.62 in early trading—an all-time high intraday level. Yet the close that day was 6,869.83, down 1.55%. Morning buyers and evening observers saw entirely diffe...

There's one stock market saying you hear all the time. Cut your losses short and ride your winners long. It's in every book, on every YouTube channel. I believed it too for years. Here's the strange part though—half of it holds up to scrutiny. Plenty of people have run the numbers on cutting losses short, but there's surprisingly little hard data on whether holding winners longer actually makes you money. That's the part people rarely verify with actual numbers. So I pulled out Christian Koulmavis's rules. He's known for buying breakouts and selling as he trails a moving average. I went through 12 years of Korean stock data for every signal that matched his entry conditions—came up with 3,880 setups —then applied his exit rules exactly as stated. What surprised me most about the results wasn't the returns. It was the holding periods. I matched his entries exactly Throwing this rule at any stock is waste, not validation. But Koulmavis pub...

On August 21st (local time), Tesla stock closed at $364.20, up 5.53% from the previous day . That's more than $19 in just one day. And it wasn't just one piece of good news. Three separate announcements dropped all at once that same day. The day three things collided First, Nevada regulators approved robotaxi operations in Las Vegas. And they approved all three companies: Tesla, Uber, and Waymo. Tesla can operate up to 5,000 vehicles, while Waymo and Uber can each run up to 1,000. On the same day, Tesla also announced plans for the Semi truck in Europe. European specs and launch timelines will be unveiled at the IAA Transportation event in Hanover this September. The company noted that Cybercab production has already started at its Texas Gigafactory, while the Nevada Semi plant is in testing phase. Same approval, but why only Tesla jumped? All three companies received the same approval. But the stock market reaction was completely different. ...

This morning on August 21st US Eastern time, Coinbase (COIN) stock is trading around $188, up 9.14% during today's session . Yesterday's close was $172.35, and the stock opened at $180 right out of the gate, eventually hitting $188.70 mid-morning. Keep in mind these numbers are still moving since markets are still open as I write this. It was already up 7.1% in pre-market trading yesterday. Today it jumped over 9% again. That's two days running. When you see a move like that, there's definitely a story here. Why did this stock shoot up this week? It starts on August 19th. President Trump invited crypto industry CEOs to the Roosevelt Room at the White House. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse, Robinhood's Vlad Tenev—they all showed up. At this meeting, Trump urged Congress to move forward with the CLARITY Act. Here's what the law does—it's straightforward, really. It classifies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as commodities...

On August 21, 2026, the KOSPI Index closed at 6,912.95, up +0.88% from the previous day. But on the same day, KOSDAQ fell to 801.94, down -4.63% , and even triggered a sell-side sidecar during the session. On paper, both are Korean markets, but they had completely different days. Just two stocks pulled KOSPI higher: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. What dragged KOSDAQ down were the biotech, secondary battery, and semiconductor equipment stocks that had surged the day before. To understand today, you need to grasp the temperature difference between these two markets first. KOSPI Takes a Roller Coaster Ride, Closes Higher KOSPI had a rough start today. Overnight, Wall Street fell on rising Treasury yields, a Middle East-driven oil spike, and concerns about Walmart's weak earnings. KOSPI opened down 1.35% at 6,759.95. In early trading, it dipped as far as -1.61%. Then a rebound kicked in mid-morning. Around noon it climbed to the 6,940 level, only to slide back to 6,87...