Daily Briefing · 2026-10-31

As a result, the total market capitalization of U.S. semiconductor stocks, approximately 860 trillion won, evaporated. Amid spreading doubts over the profitability of AI investment, the Nasdaq index fell 2.9%, its largest drop since June. In contrast, Apple, viewed favorably for its cautious AI investment strategy, recorded a market capitalization of $5.0300 trillion, surpassing Nvidia to reclaim the world's No. 1 position after three months. On the crypto exchange Binance, an attack presumed to be by a North Korea-linked hacking organization stole assets worth $6.4 billion, approximately 8.5 trillion won in Korean currency. Binance decided to fully compensate for this damage. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and about 50 Samsung executives separately met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss HBM memory supply and AI data center cooperation plans. Meanwhile, OpenAI lowered its corporate valuation from $1.4 trillion to $1.25 trillion and also lowered its new investment fundraising target from $30 billion to $20 billion. In the domestic stock market, the KOSPI surged 97% in the first half, recording the world's No. 1 return, but plunged more than 40% in the second half, turning into the world's worst annual performance. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced record-breaking results of 107 trillion won and 83 trillion won respectively, and Japan's Kioxia also recorded its best first-half results, driven by AI data center demand. In the real estate market, Seoul apartment prices rose for a 90th consecutive week, and while listings approached 80,000, transaction volume plunged 56%, making the deterioration of market liquidity clear. President Lee Jae-myung, ahead of his return from a state visit to Mexico, stated that he would maintain the real estate policy stance for normalizing the asset market without change. MBK Partners faced a legal dispute with second-largest shareholder Golfzon Holdings over the process of selling its stake in Golfzon County. Allegations of breach of trust were raised regarding the call option clause in the management cooperation agreement that Yungpoong signed with MBK Partners. Hanwha Defense, for the first time since acquiring Philly Shipyard, won a contract from the U.S. Navy to build a medium landing ship worth approximately 360 billion won. The National Pension Service achieved a 65.81% return on domestic stocks, recording a cumulative return of 14.77% as of the end of August. As market volatility increased, investors moved more than 4 trillion won into ultra-short-term bond funds over the past month, showing a preference for safe assets. Viva Republica, which operates Toss, is pursuing entry into the Japanese financial market through the acquisition of a Japanese securities firm. In Brazil, political instability is growing as former candidate Bolsonaro, who lost the presidential election, fled to the United States in violation of a court-ordered travel ban.