Daily Briefing · 2026-09-24

S. 10-year Treasury yield broke through 5.13 percent, dealing a heavy blow to tech stocks including semiconductor shares. Meanwhile, the OECD raised its growth outlook for Korea's economy this year to 3.7 percent, the largest upward revision among G20 countries. In the domestic real estate market, Seoul apartment prices rose for the 85th consecutive week, approaching an all-time record, with the Gangnam 3 districts showing a slowdown in gains while the increase spreads across non-Gangnam areas. Samsung Electronics continued its share price rally on the back of foreign buying, and employees of the semiconductor DS division are expected to receive special business performance bonuses of up to 600 million won per person at the end of September. At the National Assembly's inspection sessions, ruling and opposition parties clashed over whether to summon conglomerate chiefs such as Lee Jae-yong and Chey Tae-won as witnesses, with semiconductor investment and defense industry governance emerging as key issues. HLB's subsidiary's bile duct cancer treatment Rifictu received FDA approval, and with Korean-made pharmaceuticals exempted from the United States' high tariff measures, the export competitiveness of the domestic bio industry has strengthened. In the cryptocurrency market, bitcoin fell 4.6 percent due to the surge in U.S. Treasury yields, dropping to the $83,000 range. Household debt problems are also intensifying, with per-capita household loans in the second quarter reaching 97.9 million won, the highest in 10 years, and the proportion of multiple debtors reaching 23.7 percent. Meanwhile, the U.S. and China agreed to extend their trade truce by two months until January next year, temporarily easing tariff burdens. In the energy sector, Korea secured export opportunities worth up to $120 billion by participating in the construction of 8 large nuclear reactors in the United States. In the data center cooling market, Samsung and LG are engaged in fierce competition, with Samsung investing 240 billion won in Gwangju and LG setting a target of 1 trillion won in chiller sales. In the tech stock market, the success of Meta's AI agent Muse dispelled fears of AI extinction theory, causing related stocks to rebound sharply. On the diplomatic and security front, Kim Jong-un's official visit to Russia has drawn attention to strengthening North Korea-Russia relations as a geopolitical risk on the Korean Peninsula. Lastly, it was found that the Korea Expressway Corporation's highway toll exemptions have reached 6.3 trillion won over 20 years, deepening the fiscal burden caused by 41 trillion won in borrowings.