South Korean stocks sank on Monday, with the benchmark Kospi index plunging more than 8% soon after market open, as investors pulled back AI bets after the recent rally. Friday's tech selloff in the U.S. was also a factor, as strong jobs data fueled expectations of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The Kospi's sharp decline prompted the Korea Exchange to activate a circuit breaker, halti...
South Korean stocks sank on Monday, with the benchmark Kospi index plunging more than 8% soon after market open, as investors pulled back AI bets after the recent rally. Friday's tech selloff in the U.S. was also a factor, as strong jobs data fueled expectations of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The Kospi's sharp decline prompted the Korea Exchange to activate a circuit breaker, halting trading for 20 minutes. "South Korean stocks, the poster child of AI concentration risk, tumbled more than 8%, extending a three-day decline to 13.5%, as investors pulled back from AI bets that have fueled the global bull market in equities," Saxo analysts noted. "The key question is whether this remains a valuation reset or becomes a broader risk-off move." The Seoul-listed shares of index heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped as much as 11% and 10% each. The memory chipmakers were the main drivers for the Kospi's recent rally, with their market capitalizations crossing $1T this year. The Kospi has seen outsized gains lately, notching a fresh intraday record high last week, and is up 77.6% this year. But the index fell 5.5% on Friday amid a pullback in chip stocks. Foreign capital outflows also accelerated, with overseas investors selling more than $800M worth of Kospi-listed shares on Monday. Meanwhile, the won rebounded slightly against the U.S. dollar ( USD:KRW ) on Monday after hitting its lowest level since 2009 in the previous session. More on South Korea All The Classic Signs Of A Bubble In South Korea Samsung: Strike Relief Is Good For Revenue, But It Removes A Margin Catalyst KORU: Tuesday's 22% Drop Is A Warning For This 3x Levered Fund Most global central banks remain above inflation targets, BofA says
PhonlamaiPhoto/iStock via Getty Images I have admired ASML Holding NV ( ASML ) for years, having first invested in the company in 2018. ASML is, by today's standards, one of the best quality industrial monopolies the world has ever seen. Every advanced chip that reaches your hands has passed through an ASML machine at some point in its creation. Couple that with consistent and compounding EPS grow...
PhonlamaiPhoto/iStock via Getty Images I have admired ASML Holding NV ( ASML ) for years, having first invested in the company in 2018. ASML is, by today's standards, one of the best quality industrial monopolies the world has ever seen. Every advanced chip that reaches your hands has passed through an ASML machine at some point in its creation. Couple that with consistent and compounding EPS growth, strong fundamentals, unique competitive advantages, and catalysts for future growth, and you have yourself a quality growth stock. However, today, there are too many uncertainties, both internal and external to ASML, for me to have this stock as a buy at current prices. At what is a very expensive valuation, I don't think investors have seriously considered marketability risks for High-NA EUV, continued China tariff and export restriction risks, and the big word of Taiwan in an increasingly hostile global climate. I would love to have ASML as a buy; its business model deserves it. But until some of these uncertainties have cleared themselves up, or until ASML's entry point becomes more reasonable, I am staying on the sidelines. Let's explore why in greater detail. The Business: Let's Give Credit Where It's Due ASML is the definition of a quality growth business. As you may well know, the company is the sole manufacturer of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which use light with wavelengths of just 13.5 nanometers to etch the most advanced chip patterns onto silicon. ASML has many competitive advantages linked to its patent-protected EUV platform, and the physics, engineering, supply chain relationships, and historical Capex investment embedded in each machine provide an Alcatraz-like moat for the company. And it's not like ASML is operating in a legacy industry. I first bought the stock back in 2018, when investors began truly appreciating the scale of the opportunity set within the semiconductor industry. Since then, AI has opened the door to even further ...
Companies such as Apple and Google have until September to install software or face legislation, says PM UK politics live – latest updates Apple and Google have been given until September to install software that blocks explicit images on children’s mobile phones or face legislation enforcing its requirement, Keir Starmer said on Monday. The prime minister said tech companies must activate nudity-...
Companies such as Apple and Google have until September to install software or face legislation, says PM UK politics live – latest updates Apple and Google have been given until September to install software that blocks explicit images on children’s mobile phones or face legislation enforcing its requirement, Keir Starmer said on Monday. The prime minister said tech companies must activate nudity-detection algorithms or other technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults. Continue reading...
Romania’s largest bank shares tumbled after the nation’s competition watchdog imposed a record fine over alleged collusion in setting money-market rates. Banca Transilvania , which received the biggest fine from the competition authority, fell as much as 2.6% on Monday in Bucharest, while BRD-Groupe Societe Generale SA dropped as much as 3.6%. The country’s Competition Council fined 10 banks a com...
Romania’s largest bank shares tumbled after the nation’s competition watchdog imposed a record fine over alleged collusion in setting money-market rates. Banca Transilvania , which received the biggest fine from the competition authority, fell as much as 2.6% on Monday in Bucharest, while BRD-Groupe Societe Generale SA dropped as much as 3.6%. The country’s Competition Council fined 10 banks a combined 3.73 billion lei ($819 million) for exchanging confidential information and coordinated submissions used to set the Romanian Interbank Offered Rate, or Robor, according to a statement Sunday. Both banks as well as most of the other lenders penalized in the probe plan to challenge the decision in court. Local units of Raiffeisen Bank International AG , Erste Group Bank AG , UniCredit SpA , ING Groep NV and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA , as well as Libra Internet Bank and state owned Exim Banca Romaneasca and CEC Bank were also fined. Robor rates are set as a reference for the economy based on short-term lending between banks. They typically move within the interest-rate corridor set by the central bank’s deposit and lending facilities. They have also been used as a benchmark for mortgages and other loan contracts. Banca Transilvania said it was confident it could overturn the penalty that would hurt efforts to boost lending and help Romania’s economy recover from a bout of elevated inflation and three quarters without growth. The country is feeling the impact of a prolonged period of austerity needed to trim the European Union’s widest budget deficit. Read more: Political Gridlock Saps Romania’s Fight Against Stagflation “A decline in the future capitalization of banks could lead to a potential drop in lending by up to €5 billion ($5.76 billion) across the banking system,” Banca Transilvania said in a statement. The Romanian probe follows scrutiny of the way lenders set interbank rates in some of the world’s largest markets, and regulatory efforts to overhaul the price-setting ...
Christian Eriksen is "in good spirits" following his collapse against Ukraine and is expected to be discharged from hospital soon, says Denmark's national team doctor Morten Boesen.
Christian Eriksen is "in good spirits" following his collapse against Ukraine and is expected to be discharged from hospital soon, says Denmark's national team doctor Morten Boesen.
Chinese artificial intelligence firms MiniMax Group and Knowledge Atlas Technology were added to the Hang Seng Tech Index on Monday, marking the first inclusion of pure-play AI companies in Hong Kong’s benchmark technology gauge, in a move analysts said could drive substantial passive inflows. The shares moved in opposite directions, as a broader market sell-off weighed on regional benchmarks. Min...
Chinese artificial intelligence firms MiniMax Group and Knowledge Atlas Technology were added to the Hang Seng Tech Index on Monday, marking the first inclusion of pure-play AI companies in Hong Kong’s benchmark technology gauge, in a move analysts said could drive substantial passive inflows. The shares moved in opposite directions, as a broader market sell-off weighed on regional benchmarks. MiniMax slid 8.4 per cent to HK$506, while Knowledge Atlas – also known as Zhipu – gained 1.3 per cent...
MattGush Nvidia ( NVDA ) said SK Telecom ( SKM ) plans to build a gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in South Korea using the U.S. company's DSX platform, with the first AI factory planned to come online in 2027. SK Telecom’s AI Cloud will power training, inference, and agentic workloads, including sovereign, physical, and enterprise AI services for industries across Korea, with the vision to expand to great...
MattGush Nvidia ( NVDA ) said SK Telecom ( SKM ) plans to build a gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in South Korea using the U.S. company's DSX platform, with the first AI factory planned to come online in 2027. SK Telecom’s AI Cloud will power training, inference, and agentic workloads, including sovereign, physical, and enterprise AI services for industries across Korea, with the vision to expand to greater Asia regions, the companies added. An AI Cloud is large-scale AI infrastructure consisting of AI factories that make tokens, building blocks of intelligence, from data. The companies said SK Telecom's AI Cloud will be built on Nvidia's DSX full-stack reference architecture of software, hardware, and operations, producing the lowest-cost tokens at maximum energy efficiency. The DSX platform is a blueprint and software ecosystem designed to build, simulate, and operate large-scale AI factories. The companies said they are planning to expand their collaboration from AI infrastructure deployments to joint research on next-generation AI factory architectures. "Telecom networks are becoming national AI infrastructure," said Nvidia's Founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Huang, who is on a visit to South Korea, also announced partnerships with memory chipmaker SK Hynix ( HXSCL ), internet giant Naver ( NHNCF ), and LG Group ( LGEIY ). More on Nvidia Google TPU V8 Vs. Nvidia: How Inference Is Rewriting The AI Market Nvidia: Downgrade To Hold As Earnings Fail To Push Price Higher Nvidia: I Do Not Fear The AI Bubble Yet Tech sell-off can be a buying opportunity, says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang UK AI start-up PhysicsX hits $2.4B valuation following $300M Temasek-led deal
Private market dealmakers attending SuperReturn in Berlin this week are likely to be handed a short but sharp to-do list by their investors: give us our money back. And the annual gathering in the German capital arrives with more of the industry’s biggest names finding that task to be a challenge. In the hitherto booming market for private credit, money managers including Blue Owl Capital Inc. , A...
Private market dealmakers attending SuperReturn in Berlin this week are likely to be handed a short but sharp to-do list by their investors: give us our money back. And the annual gathering in the German capital arrives with more of the industry’s biggest names finding that task to be a challenge. In the hitherto booming market for private credit, money managers including Blue Owl Capital Inc. , Apollo Global Management Inc. , Blackstone Inc. and Cliffwater LLC have restricted redemptions amid concerns about the quality of certain loans sitting in portfolios. Buyout houses, meanwhile, continue to struggle offloading assets. Bloomberg-compiled data show that the value of sales by private equity firms is down by around a fifth this year, frustrating investors that want to see cash returned before hearing pitches about new funds. Read More: Partners Group Likely to Cap Flagship US Evergreen Fund Much of the discomfort stems from a selloff in software companies that have long been a favorite of private capital providers, but which are under threat from emerging AI tools. Added to this is the ongoing war in Iran that’s bringing inflationary pressures that make it harder to value assets. This sets the scene for what could be some tricky conversations between firms and their backers in and around the InterContinental Hotel on Berlin’s historic Budapester Straße in the coming days. “At the beginning of the year, people were just incredibly optimistic,” said Xavier Robert , chief investment officer at Bridgepoint Group Plc . “Recent macroeconomic and geopolitical developments have meant we need to revise our expectations.” The year began with M&A booming and expectations that central banks would cut interest rates, creating healthy conditions for firms to buy and sell assets and credit providers to help finance transactions. The mood shifted quickly when investors started dumping software stocks because of fears that AI tools from the likes of Anthropic PBC would render trad...