news highlight

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  Korea's rate hike to 2.75% in July seen unanimous in AJP poll SEOUL, July 10 (AJP) - The Bank of Korea is expected to resume monetary tightening next week with its first interest-rate increase in three and a half years, according to an AJP survey of economists, with an overwhelming majority also expecting another rate hike before the end of the year. All 10 economists surveyed by AJP forecast the Monetary Policy Board will raise the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.75 percent from 2.50 percent at its July 16 meeting, marking the central ban July 10, 2026
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  SK hynix ADR: From rescued chipmaker to Wall Street's hottest foreign listing SEOUL, July 10 (AJP) - SK hynix has gone from one of South Korea's biggest corporate rescues to Wall Street's biggest foreign share sale, raising a record $26.5 billion on Nasdaq just 14 years after SK Group acquired the struggling memory maker for roughly $3 billion. The blockbuster listing underscores how the artificial intelligence boom has transformed the once-troubled chipmaker into one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies. The company has priced its landmark U. July 10, 2026
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  The mystery behind the near-flat Korea-U.S. sovereign yield gap SEOUL, July 09 (AJP) - Foreign appetite for South Korean sovereign bonds has stayed firm this year even as investors dumped Korean equities, but that has not stopped bond prices from falling. The spread between Korean and U.S. 10-year government debt has narrowed to less than 30 basis points, even though the policy-rate gap between the Bank of Korea and the Federal Reserve remains wider than 100 basis points. As of midday Thursday, Korea’s 10-year government bond yielded 4.282 percent, w July 9, 2026
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  C/A data explains the mystery behind the stubbornly weak won SEOUL, July 08 (AJP) - The foreign-exchange formula used to be simple for South Korea. The current-account surplus set the tone for the Korean won against the U.S. dollar in the export-reliant economy. Strong exports bolstered the won, while a weaker won made Korean goods more competitive overseas. For foreign-exchange watchers, trade data mattered most. Not anymore. The Korean won has hovered around 1,500 per U.S. dollar since late last year. The dollar ended June at 1,549.4 won, compared w July 8, 2026
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  The great shortfalls in the grand Honam chip project SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - The devil is in the details, and South Korea's mammoth plan to create a second chipmaking epicenter in the industrially neglected southwest is drawing skepticism not only because of its astronomical 800 trillion won ($523 billion) price tag, but also because of the critical shortfalls money alone cannot solve. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have announced plans to build two next-generation fabs each in the Honam region, investing 400 trillion won apiece in what Pres July 7, 2026
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  Seoul's 24-hour FX market tests local banks' staffing capacity SEOUL, July 06 (AJP) - South Korea began round-the-clock foreign exchange trading on Monday, but while the country's largest lenders are relying on overseas dealing desks to cover the new hours, smaller regional banks say they are scrambling to find enough people to stay awake. "We need more staff, but there are limits to how quickly we can hire people for this," one foreign-exchange official at a regional bank told AJP on condition of anonymity. "We will probably introduce July 6, 2026
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  Durability of Seoul's bull questioned as leverage exceeds retail trade SEOUL, July 06 (AJP) — As the KOSPI correction enters a third week, retail investors remain the primary buffer against relentless foreign selling, but much of their firepower is borrowed, raising questions about the durability of Seoul's record-setting bull market. Outstanding margin loans and stock-backed lending averaged a record 61.98 trillion won ($39.8 billion) per trading day during the April-June quarter, exceeding the combined average daily trading value of 52.5 trillion won o July 6, 2026
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  Bond rally signals sobriety on Korea's economy – weak without chips SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - From the look of the sovereign bond market in July, South Korea's economy is running solidly on strong exports while inflation, despite energy shocks from the prolonged Gulf crisis, remains broadly contained around 3 percent, suggesting the Bank of Korea may need no more than one additional rate hike from the current 2.50 percent. Compared with the wild swings in equities and the won's slide to near three-decade lows, South Korea's bond market has remained rem July 3, 2026
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  Korea's chip republic meets the law of semiconductor cycles SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) -The market has finally started asking the uncomfortable question. For the last 18 months, investors treated AI memory as a one-way trade. High-bandwidth memory (HBM) shortages, exploding AI server demand and the near-duopoly of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix turned South Korea into the center of the global AI hardware story. After Seoul unveiled a string of government-backed semiconductor mega projects swelling above $1 trillion across Yongin, Honam and Chungcheong, inv July 3, 2026