• U.S. firms pledge $2 billion investment in Korea across chips and energy SEOUL, September 05 (AJP) - Four U.S. companies have pledged a combined $2 billion investment in South Korea spanning semiconductors, advanced display materials and offshore wind, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said. The commitments were announced in Washington, D.C..
• Chip windfall finally arrives on the FX front SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - The South Korean won is looking entirely different from the first half, closing at its strongest level in 14 months Friday as a swelling current-account surplus increasingly offsets heavy overseas equity investment and other capital outflows.
• State bank relocation sparks mass finance strike in Seoul SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - State bank relocation sparks mass finance strike in Seoul Strikes have been a common scene in Korea this year, and the traditional banking picketers took to the streets that they surrendered to IT workers earlier on demanding bigger compensations from AI windfall.
• Samsung's aggressive HBM4 bet narrows gap with SK hynix SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics, making up for its passivity and late start in high-bandwidth memory, has ushered in the next generation with an aggressive bet on HBM4 that is paying off by sharply narrowing the gap with frontrunner SK hynix.
• Samsung, SK hynix hold nearly half of global NAND market SEOUL, September 4 (AJP) - South Korea's two major chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix retained the top two spots in the global NAND flash market in the second quarter, together accounting for nearly half of global sales.
• UPDATE: Korea's H1 C/A surplus second only to China SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - South Korea posted its second-largest current account surplus on record at $42.08 billion in July.

AJP Briefing

• Won closes at 14-month high, bond yields little changed SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - The South Korean won extended its rally to a 14-month high Friday, while government bonds ended little changed as investors stayed cautious ahead of U.S. employment data. The won strengthened 8.9 won from the previous session to close daytime trading at 1,350.4 per dollar, compared with Thursday's 1,359.3. The currency briefly entered the 1,340 range during the session, its strongest intraday level since early July 2025. Exporter dollar selling continued to sup
• Chip stocks lead KOSPI rebound as bank trade unwinds SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - A signal from the U.S. Federal Reserve unwound a week of rate-driven positioning in Seoul on Friday, pulling money out of the bank stocks that had thrived on surging yields and back into memory chips. The KOSPI closed 1.6 percent higher, adding 107.73 points to 6,687.21 for a second straight gain after Wednesday's near 4 percent collapse. Samsung Electronics rose 2.2 percent to 255,500 won ($189) and SK hynix gained 3.2 percent to 1,647,000 won ($1,219). SK squa

AJP ScaleUP

• ROBOTIS surges 22% on Goldman Sachs' 630,000-won target SEOUL, September 4 (AJP) — Shares of South Korean robotics company ROBOTIS jumped more than 22 percent Friday after Goldman Sachs rated the stock a buy and set a 630,000-won target price, citing strong demand for its robot actuators. Its shares closed at 304,500 won ($225), up 22.54 percent from the previous session's close of 248,500 won, according to Korea Exchange data. The stock opened at 267,000 won and fell as low as 265,000 won and climbed as high as 315,000 won during the sess
• Sky Labs doubles on KOSDAQ debut SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - South Korean digital healthcare company Sky Labs doubled from its initial public offering (IPO) price on its KOSDAQ debut Friday after briefly surging to nearly three times the offering price. As of 2:20 p.m., shares traded at 20,000 won ($14.40), double its 10,000 won offering price. The stock opened at 8,500 won and fell as low as 8,200 won. It later climbed to an intraday high of 28,750 won, 187.5 percent above the IPO price. The sharp reversal made the company o

ASIA Insight

• Cabinet reshuffle turns into political headache for South Korea's Lee SEOUL, September 04 (AJP) - The roster for President Lee Jae Myung’s 2.0 reshuffle has generated a rumpus before the nominees even arrive at South Korea’s legislative confirmation hearings, denting the already fragile popularity of the presidency. According to the latest Gallup Korea poll, 40 percent of respondents positively assessed Lee’s job performance, while 51 percent gave a negative assessment. The positive rating was the lowest since he took office, while the negative by Lee Jung-woo
• Will America risk New York for Seoul? SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and ordered scale-back in U.S.-South Korea military drills that anger Pyongyang and cost Washington heavily, reigniting a long-running question in Seoul: Should South Korea arm itself with nuclear weapons? Once taboo, the idea is gaining broader public acceptance. Sixty-five percent of South Koreans support the country possessing nuclear weapons, while 30 percent oppose it, according to the la by Lee Jung-woo

AJP Watch

• At Kiaf and Frieze, Seoul's art crowds come before the buyers SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - Kiaf Seoul, Korea's flagship art fair, has plenty to celebrate in its 25th edition. On Thursday morning, its audience looked ready for the occasion. Minutes before the 11 a.m. opening, VIP guests were already gathered inside COEX. The dress was polished rather than extravagant: neat jackets, muted colors, the practiced restraint of an art-fair crowd. Then the doors opened and the phones came out. Visitors paused before paintings, stepped back for photographs a
• Korea's squishy toy craze puts 14+ labels under scrutiny SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) -South Korea's squishy-toy craze is getting a sober safety check. In Seoul's Dongdaemun toy district, the old staples of childhood are still everywhere. Children weave between shops packed floor to ceiling with transforming robots, Lego sets, dolls and BB guns. Wedged among them is a newer kind of toy, designed less to build or shoot than to squeeze, stretch and crack. There are croissant-shaped squishies, tubs of brightly colored slime, stretchy "slan

AJP Focus

• AI spending binge steepens Korea's bond curve SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - As the race for AI supremacy sends government and corporate spending into the stratosphere, investors are demanding more to lend for decades — a shift showing up starkly in South Korea, where yields have risen progressively faster toward the long end of the government bond curve. The yield chart over the past year shows an increasingly steep repricing toward longer maturities. The 30-year yield has climbed the most, touching a record 4.751 percent in August, wh
• Will AI contracts shield Korean chipmakers from boom-and-bust cycle? SEOUL, September 02 (AJP) - Investment banks and market trackers are betting South Korea's memory giants can extend their red-hot earnings streak into a third year in 2027 and possibly beyond, as AI pushes the business away from the spot-price-driven boom-and-bust cycles that have long defined memory chips. Before the rise of AI, earnings at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were heavily exposed to prices for mass-market DRAM and NAND flash, commodities notorious for swinging between shortag