South Korea

• KRX Semis is September’s key passive event, but TIGER’s unusual 6% Hynix underweight and sampling approach ahead of the rebalance has raised fresh tracking concerns.
• Mirae’s sampling explanation is questionable, with TIGER effectively running an active tilt before reversing KRW 80bn of Hynix and Samsung trades last Wednesday. FSS review remains unclear.
• Full replication is the base case. Pre position TES and TSE, then target spillover flows as Hynix and Samsung revert to the 20% cap, with Hynix driving KRW 1.2tn.

• In this insight, I discuss about SK Innovation (096770 KS) and four other stocks in KOSPI that could experience additional selling with end of mandatory lock-up periods in September.
• The end of these lock-up periods could potentially result in additional selling by insiders which could negatively impact the share prices of these companies (on average) in the coming weeks.
• SK Innovation recently announced its merger plans with SK IE Technology (361610 KS) which I viewed negatively due to negative impact on SK Innovation’s financials. 

• Our WEEKLY tactical global macro recap/analysis for several markets and stocks we track, grouped by sector.
• We apply our quantitative models to each instrument’s trend, to determine which stocks/markets are just starting a trend, are in the middle of it, or are about to end it.
• Most overbought:  BHP Group Ltd, POSCO Holdings, Bank of China, Hitachi Ltd. Most oversold: NetEase Cloud Music, Samsung Electronics, Meituan, Gold, Softbank Group, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) 

• SK hynix (000660 KS) fell 3.8% in August MTD, while its 2x Leveraged Index declined 13.4% and combined KRX-listed ETF AUM fell 28% to KRW 3.8tn.
• The seven KRX-listed 2x long ETFs recorded combined net outflows of KRW 763bn, with units outstanding declining in six products and redemptions amplifying negative performance.
• Daily flows in the long and inverse ETFs were negatively correlated, causing associated hedge flows to reinforce rather than offset each other, although the larger long products dominate the effect.

• What he said. At the 27 Aug Indiana groundbreaking, CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the memory shortage runs through end-2030 with no downturn signal visible. He was serious on this. 
• What it is worth. If right, FY2027E OP is ~KRW 295tn vs our KRW 250tn base, and FY2026-30 after-tax earnings exceeds its current MCAP. 
• What to do. BULLISH, FV KRW 3,500,000 unchanged — it needs him right on 2027 only as the market is treating the stock as if earnings have peaked already. 

• Samyang has absorbed every capacity addition within months since 2022, and the July-2026 export slowdown to +8% YoY reads as the same ceiling recurring, not fading Buldak demand.
• A 15% US tariff was passed through as a 9% October-2025 price hike with no volume loss, proving pricing power; a Nov-2025 treasury-share sale still weighs on governance.
• We initiate BULLISH with a 12-month Fair Value of ₩1,880,000, 17x our FY2028E EPS of ₩110,792, for +22.7% upside from Samyang’s ₩1,532,000 spot.

• On 28 August, it was reported that Lee Jang-han (Chairman of Chong Kun Dang Pharm) plans to gift his entire stake in Chong Kun Dang to his three children.
• Once the gifting process is completed as planned, Chairman Lee’s stake in Chong Kun Dang will drop from 9.55% to 0%.
• Sometimes, major family controlling chairman of Korean companies try to gift his shares to his children when the share prices are low to MINIMIZE INHERITANCE TAXES that are extremely high.

• Succession Tax Optimization Drives Yesterday’s Stake Gift: Chairman Lee Jang-han’s sudden gift of his entire 9.55% stake in Chong Kun Dang (CKD) Pharmaceutical to his three children on August 28, 2026, replicates the family’s September 2025 Kyongbo Pharmaceutical equity transfer. This is a strategic move to lock in succession tax liabilities while the “Korea Discount” keeps the company’s valuation depressed, bypassing the government’s newly tightened August 2026 price-suppression tax valuation rules.
• MOHW Pricing Reforms and Tactical Deferrals: The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s (MOHW) landmark decision on August 27, 2026, to delay generic drug price cuts (lowering the reimbursement ceiling from 53.55% to 45%) to April 2027 provides a critical six-month cash flow buffer. However, forward operating margins will inevitably compress toward 4.5% as CKD’s top-line is increasingly cannibalized by low-margin in-licensed co-promotions like Wegovy and Fexuclue.
• Severely Misaligned Capital Allocation vs. Value-Up: Despite government pressure to improve corporate governance, management has acted against minority shareholder interests, slashing the dividend per share from 1,100 won to 500 won in March 2026. Cash is being aggressively diverted to fund a massive 2.2 trillion won biopharmaceutical complex in Siheung, designed to build long-term legacy assets for the succession heirs rather than returning capital to public investors.

• Defensive Capital Structure Strategy: Samsung Biologics’ decision to fund the CHF 1.46 billion (KRW 2.71 trillion) PolyPeptide Group acquisition via a KRW 3.0 trillion rights offering protects its fortress balance sheet (debt-to-equity of 44% as of Q2 2026) and safeguards its AAA-equivalent domestic credit rating, neutralizing high-interest-rate borrowing risks while entering the high-margin peptide modality.
• M&A Integration Complexity: Integrating PolyPeptide AG represents a major operational departure from the Songdo “mega-plant” playbook. Moving from highly automated, centralized large-scale mammalian cell cultures to multi-site solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) across Europe, the US, and India introduces cultural, labor, and process differences that cannot easily be standardized under the company’s proprietary ExellenS framework.
• Biosecure Act Windfall Execution: While the US Biosecure Act represents a massive tailwind, capturing this pipeline requires proactive tech transfers and commercial-scale validations, especially as major clients require dual-sourcing architectures. The acquisition of the 60,000-liter Rockville, Maryland facility for USD 280 million from GSK serves as a crucial onshore asset to satisfy domestic manufacturing requirements and secure late-stage clinical pipelines ahead of the 2032 grandfathering cliff.

• Structural Cash Repatriation Is Optimized via Transfer Pricing, Not Dividends: The tax friction of moving cash from the US operating entity (DoubleDown Interactive LLC) to Korea is heavily mitigated by a strategic intercompany restructure executed in late 2024. Rather than relying on dividends—which incur a 10% US withholding tax and are non-deductible—Doubleugames (DUG) utilizes a direct cost-plus Game Development Agreement. This allows the US entity to deduct development fees, reducing its 21% US federal tax liability while upstreaming cash to Korea as service revenue, completely bypassing dividend withholding taxes.
• The Social Casino Legal Threat Is a Terminal Tail Risk, Not an Anomaly: While the market treats Washington State’s $415 million Benson settlement and the $24.94 million High 5 Games verdict in February 2025 as localized events, the expansion of Recovery of Money Lost at Gambling Act (RMLGA) litigation to states like Alabama, Kentucky, and Illinois poses an existential threat. Geofencing is an incomplete shield, and mass arbitration is a double-edged sword that could trigger millions in upfront filing fees for the company.
• Capital Allocation Suffers from Extreme Conservatism and Weak M&A Execution: Post-privatization of DoubleDown Interactive (DDI), DUG will trade at a rock-bottom 1.9x TTM EBITDA with net cash representing 60% of its market cap. However, management has historically failed to deploy this capital effectively. Compensation KPIs remain structurally biased toward top-line EBITDA rather than ROIC, leading to defensive cash hoarding and minor, poorly integrated acquisitions like the €55 million purchase of WHOW Games in July 2025.

• DoubleU Games (DUG) is acquiring the remaining 32.9% of DoubleDown Interactive (DDI) at $11.25/ADS, valuing DDI’s business at 0.3x FCF.
• Post-acquisition, DUG will have net cash equal to 60% of its market cap, trading at 1.9x TTM EBITDA.
• DUG plans to enhance shareholder returns post-DDI acquisition, with potential dividend increases and share buybacks.

• On 28 August, Samsung Biologics (207940 KS) announced a rights offering capital raise worth nearly 3 trillion won.
• Samsung Biologics has shifted its funding strategy for the acquisition of the Swiss CDMO firm PolyPeptide from relying on existing cash reserves and borrowing to prioritizing a capital increase.
• Final pricing of this rights offering will be confirmed on 4 November. Despite some near term negative outlook, I think there could be some trading opportunity on this rights offering.

• Yesterday’s blockbuster 906.6 billion won buyout offer by Flashlight Capital Partners (FCP) for Samsung’s 20.6% stake represents a massive governance test under Korea’s newly amended Commercial Act, but the structural gridlock between Samsung Group and joint-venture partner Secom (holding 25.65%) makes a hostile or outside takeover functionally impossible without Japanese consent.
• S-1’s highly lucrative captive intra-group transactions with Samsung affiliates face intensifying regulatory oversight from the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), highlighted by the recent July 2026 bid-rigging fine involving S-1 and its spin-off ESTec System, demonstrating that local regulators are increasingly monitoring physical security bidding processes.
• Despite the South Korean government’s “Value-up Program,” S-1’s extreme valuation discount of 3.3x EV/EBITDA—compared to peer SK Shieldus’s acquisition multiple of 12.0x—is likely to persist. S-1’s board continues to prioritize the parent conglomerate’s operational stability over minority shareholder capital returns, utilizing its 11.0% treasury stock and cash reserves as defensive moats.

• Asset Valuation Arbitrage as a Growth Catalyst: SK Telecom’s carving out of its data center and submarine cable assets into SK Horizon serves as a strategic maneuver to unlock value by separating high-multiple digital infrastructure from its mature, low-multiple telecom parent. By securing a KRW 3.08 trillion equity investment from KKR and the IMM-Stonebridge consortium, SKT values the carved-out platform at up to KRW 7 trillion on an enterprise value basis, successfully offloading heavy capital expenditure while retaining 51% control.
• Regulatory Pressures Overhaul Cash Flows: The South Korean telecommunications sector remains heavily regulated, with the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) demonstrating persistent vigilance—highlighted by the KRW 114 billion fine imposed in March 2025 for sales incentive collusion. Looking forward, the upcoming November 2028 5G spectrum reallocation and the impending October 2026 implementation of the “optimal rate plan notification system” are poised to compress average revenue per user (ARPU) and elevate regulatory capital expenditure risks.
• Group Restructuring vs. Shareholder Alignment: SK Telecom is operating under structural tension between SK Group’s broader conglomerate restructuring and the telecom unit’s cash-generation mandate. With SK Group executing major affiliate mergers and holding company transactions—such as selling a 70.6% stake in SK Siltron to Doosan for KRW 2.3 trillion—SKT is under continuous pressure to upstream dividends to support group-level liabilities, including Chairman Chey Tae-won’s massive divorce settlement. This limits SKT’s standalone balance sheet capacity, necessitating off-balance-sheet financing vehicles like SK Horizon and SK Hyper to fund its multi-gigawatt AI data center ambitions.

• On 27 August, SK Telecom (017670 KS) officially launched SK Horizon, the AI data center (AIDC) arm.
• SK Telecom will partner with KKR, IMM Investment, and Stonebridge consortium that will provide 3.1 trillion won ($2.2 billion) in total capital. SK Horizon is targeting 318MW of capacity.
• Overall, I am positive on SK Telecom’s establishment of SK Horizon (AIDC). By establishing SK Horizon, SK Telecom has killed two birds with one stone.

• On 27 August, Flashlight Capital (a private equity firm in Singapore) announced that it is offering to buy Samsung Group’s entire 20.6% stake in S-1 Corporation (012750 KS).
• Flashlight Capital has offered to acquire the entire 20.6% stake in S-1 Corp held by five Samsung Group affiliates for 906.6 billion won. 
• Although Flashlight Capital’s bid for the 20.6% stake held by Samsung affiliates is laudable, it is somewhat disappointing since it leaves out other minority shareholders. 

• Mismatched Corporate Value-Up Expectations: While Hyundai Motor’s August 26, 2026 CEO Investor Day showcased a robust 35% Total Payout Ratio (TPR) target, the market’s reaction was lukewarm due to a structural skew toward cash dividends over aggressive share cancellations. The cancellation of 2.51 million treasury shares (valued at 800 billion won) only represented a 0.6% reduction in common shares, down from 2.2% in 2025, which leaves preferred shares as the more attractive yield play.
• Unwinding the Circular Ownership Loop: Restructuring the group’s governance (Mobis $\rightarrow$ Hyundai Motor $\rightarrow$ Kia $\rightarrow$ Mobis) remains the single biggest bottleneck to unlocking conglomerate value. Elevating Hyundai Mobis into a linear holding company is the ultimate goal, but doing so requires billions in capital. Speculative strategies link the eventual Boston Dynamics IPO—now realistic at a $3.3 billion valuation floor based on the July 2026 SoftBank buyout—to generating the liquidity needed for Chairman Euisun Chung to consolidate his Mobis stake.
• US Tariff Pressures and Metaplant Pivot: Despite South Korea negotiating a reduction in the US auto tariff from 25% to 15% in November 2025, imports remain heavily penalized. The Georgia Metaplant (HMGMA), which commenced operations in late 2024, is the primary defensive hedge. Hyundai is actively weighing plans to expand HMGMA’s capacity from 500,000 units to up to 800,000 units by 2028 to bypass tariffs and capture lucrative North American hybrid and EREV margins, which currently run 5% higher than the company’s average.

• A test strip is a piece of paper about the size of a stick of gum, and the number of allergies it can check is simply the number of thin lines you can print on it.
• Printing one more line costs almost nothing.
• That is one half of why this business works; the other half is that the strip only fits its own machine.

• Hynix has bought back 3.25mn shares, or 13.5%, in six days. At the current 650K daily pace, it should finish October 19, a month ahead of the November 19 deadline.
• The early buyback finish is not unusual, but its timing near the October 8 ADR lockup expiry revives chatter around a potential follow on ADR issuance.
• Square could sell the 68bp stake via a secondary ADR, potentially funding a special dividend for Chey’s ₩1T divorce settlement. Watch September filings for fungibility signals and ADR arb timing.

• Glenwood Credit, a Korean PE firm, is looking to sell its stake in Silicon2 (257720 KS) , which it holds through a special purpose vehicle Silk Investment Purpose. 
• Silicon2 is a global distribution company that sell products from South Korean cosmetic brands mainly across Europe, America and other parts of Asia.
• In this note, we will talk about the placement and run the deal through our ECM framework.

• Seers (458870 KS) is a digital healthcare firm in Korea that specializes in wearable medical biosensors, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven clinical data analysis, and remote patient monitoring (RPM) platforms.
• Given the company’s surging sales and profit growth, I believe it deserves to trade at 20x P/E. 
• Assuming consensus net profit estimate of 86.8 billion won, a 20X P/E suggests market cap of 1.7 trillion won, representing 110% upside from current levels (about 44,000 won per share). 

• Hyundai Motor announced a major share cancellation involving 2.51 million treasury shares [1.29 million common shares (0.6% of common shares) and 1.21 million preferred shares (2% of preferred shares)]. 
• Overall, I think there were some disappointment with the level of cancellations for common shares but not for preferred shares.
• In my view, Hyundai Motor’s preferred shares are likely to outperform the common shares in the next 6-12 months amid this treasury shares cancellation announced today. 

• Sacra estimates that Wrtn generated $33M in revenue in 2025, up 15x from $2.2M in 2024, as it introduced paid character chat in Korea and expanded its interactive storytelling model into Japan.
• Wrtn is targeting $145M in full-year 2026 revenue across Crack, Kyarapu, OOC and its early-stage enterprise AI business.
• Wrtn closed its Series C on August 26, 2026, raising approximately $100 million.

• Upcoming Overhang Pressure and FI Trapping: K Bank’s 6-month lockup expiration on September 5, 2026, will release 23% of the stock to pre-IPO financial investors. However, with K Bank currently trading at 5,620 KRW—well below its IPO price of 8,300 KRW and the FIs’ estimated acquisition cost of 6,500 KRW—immediate selling pressure may be muted as institutional sponsors are reluctant to crystallize heavy paper losses.
• The Upbit Funding Double-Edge: The Virtual Asset User Protection Act has structurally damaged K Bank’s profitability. Once a source of zero-cost, sticky deposits, Upbit’s 5 trillion won in user balances (comprising 20% of total deposits) now requires a 1.3% minimum interest payout, dragging K Bank’s Net Interest Margin (NIM) down from 2.4% in 2023 to 1.4% in 2025.
• Regulatory Ceilings and the Pivot to SME/SOHO: Rigid Financial Services Commission (FSC) household debt growth caps (briefly eased from 1.5% to 3.0% in August 2026) and the 30% mid-to-low credit lending mandate are forcing K Bank into real estate-backed SOHO loans. While this skirts consumer lending ceilings, it has caused K Bank’s debt-sale ratio for vulnerable borrowers to surge from 0.20% to 1.40%, signaling mounting credit risk.

• The absorption of SK IE Technology (SKIET) by SK Innovation is a tactical containment strategy designed to prevent SKIET’s standalone credit and refinancing risks from triggering a group-wide downgrade, taking on 100% of the operational losses in exchange for an estimated 60 billion won in annual cost synergies and a path to EBITDA breakeven in two years.
• The merger’s pricing directly exploits a narrow regulatory gap, utilizing the legacy market-value-based formula just days after the National Assembly passed the new “fair-value” merger amendment on August 20, 2026, effectively locking in an ultra-low valuation of 14,783 won per share for SKIET before the law takes effect in late 2026.
• Deleveraging has replaced market share as the core top-down KPI dictated by the SK SUPEX Council, driving aggressive asset optimization—including the sale of the Changzhou plant to SEMCORP for 88.8 billion won and the $2.6 billion CPS buyback of SK On—to manage intense rating pressures from Moody’s (Ba1) and S&P (BBB-).

• I had a little bit of a moment when looking at Korean stocks.
• I looked at pros and cons (mostly tax wise) for insiders to actually return more capital and came to the conclusion that a lot of these net nets will likely stay cheap forever.
• Or until some drastic new legislation goes into effect (which I don’t see evidence of).

• Targeted Core Exposure to Korea’s Semiconductor Giants: Samsung KODEX AI Semiconductor ETF (395160 KS) serves as South Korea’s premier thematic exchange-traded fund designed to capture the structural growth of artificial intelligence and system semiconductors, tracking the FnGuide System Semiconductor Index with assets under management (AUM) exceeding KRW 4.0 trillion.
• High-Conviction Portfolio Concentration: The fund features a concentrated allocation heavily weighted in industry bellwethers—Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, SK Square, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics—which collectively represent over 90% of total assets, offering institutional investors an efficient, high-beta vehicle for the AI hardware and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) supercycle.
• Institutional Liquidity and Low Tracking Friction: Managed by Samsung Asset Management with a competitive Total Expense Ratio (TER) of 0.45%, the ETF offers tight tracking efficiency, deep secondary market liquidity, and modest distribution yields (latest yield of 0.09%), functioning as a primary vehicle for thematic semiconductor asset allocation.

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• On 25 August, SK Innovation (096770 KS) announced a merger with SK IE Technology (361610 KS) (SK IET).
• I believe this will have a negative impact on SK Innovation and a neutral impact on SK IET.
• The biggest concern is the fact that SK IET has been generating continued net losses in the past several years and this could negatively impact SK Innovations’ financial structure. 

• K Bank (279570 KS) raised around US$340m in its South Korean IPO in March 2026. The lockup on its pre-IPO investors is set to expire soon.
• K Bank is one of three Internet-only banks in Korea. It provides a full range of commercial banking products and services.
• In this note, we will talk about the lockup dynamics and possible placement.

• Public Sector Dependency & Revenue Quality: While Elice Group’s H1 2026 financials show an impressive 34.4 billion won in revenue and 10.3 billion won in operating profit, 67.4% of this revenue is driven by recognizing deferred contract liabilities (about 23.0 billion won) from a pre-paid government GPU lease contract signed in late 2025. This creates a highly lumpy revenue profile with significant concentration risk, as 65.59% of H1 2026 revenue came directly from the public sector.
• Severe Short-Term Liquidity Pressure: To secure high-performance Nvidia H100 and B200 GPUs, Elice aggressively deployed capital, causing its current ratio to plummet from 252.82% in 2023 to 75.40% in late 2025, and reaching a precarious 52.3% in H1 2026. This liquidity crunch is the primary driver behind the rapid KOSDAQ IPO, aiming to raise 156.4 billion won to 201.1 billion won to fund massive facility investments (like the Seoul Metropolitan 3rd Center PMDC).
• Structural Competitive Advantage via Full-Stack Integration: Elice successfully bypasses traditional 2-to-3-year data center construction lag times by deploying its proprietary Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC) within 3 months, reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 50%. Their proprietary virtualization OS, Elice Cloud Infrastructure (ECI), keeps virtualization overhead below 1%, allowing them to offer highly competitive pricing (including GPU Spot pricing) and defend high operating margins against legacy South Korean telecommunication CSPs (KT Cloud, NHN Cloud).

• Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) gained 7.2% in August MTD, but combined 2x leveraged ETF AUM fell 3.2% to KRW 3.1tn.
• Cumulative net outflows reached KRW 534bn MTD, with all leveraged ETFs recording reductions in units outstanding.
• Despite Samsung Electronics falling 8.3% since launch, the 2x inverse ETF has lost 56.4%, reducing its AUM to approximately KRW 15bn.

• In this insight, I argue why Samsung Electronics should buyback and cancel at least 10% of its preferred shares.
• Clearly, many shareholders have been disappointed with lack of buybacks/cancellations with the recent 30 trillion won dividend program.
• In order to appease many disappointed investors in Samsung Electronics, the company should significantly increase the buybacks/cancellation portion of the remaining shareholder returns, especially for the preferred shares. 

• This is a brief update to our recent Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) insight posted last week.
• The stock closed last week up, second week up in a row and extremely high profit target reached (short-term): our models flashed a overbought/sell signal.
• On Monday Samsung Electronics fell -9%. This insight contains the updated SUPPORT MODEL to determine where to buy again the stock.

• Samsung’s remaining KRW 70 to 80tn return package looks set at KRW 60tn dividends and KRW 10 to 20tn buybacks, with KRW 40tn a hard dividend floor and potential upside.
• Samsung’s KRW 10 to 20tn buyback could skew heavily toward prefs due to Samsung Life’s 10% constraint, implying potentially 6.7% prefs cancellation versus 0.7% common.
• Samsung offers two yearend trades: pref discount compression with 6.8% yield versus 5.1% common, and dividend arb with 3.3% yield, potentially higher amid continued memory sector vol.

• The legacy domestic growth engine has hit a structural ceiling. The tightening of private medical indemnity insurance (silbi) reimbursement rules in South Korea has severely constrained the high-margin hospital-exclusive Zeroid MD channel. The transition of the Zeroid brand into mass-retail channels like Olive Young in late 2024 was an essential defense mechanism but is diluting profitability due to intense competition and heavy marketing requirements.
• Operating margins remain healthy but are increasingly vulnerable to K-beauty’s structural inflation of customer acquisition costs (CAC). While Neopharm reported a solid 21.77% operating margin for FY 2025, domestic marketing expenses and slotting fees demanded by the dominant multi-brand store (MBS) channel, Olive Young, are compressing margins.
• Inorganic growth through M&A is urgently required to deploy cash and fill critical portfolio gaps. Despite holding 145.94 billion KRW in net cash with zero debt as of late 2025, management has been overly conservative. A capital allocation policy that prioritizes a 33% to 35% dividend payout ratio over aggressive, strategic acquisitions prevents the company from acquiring active ingredient-led brands (e.g., PDRN, Retinol) or international distribution infrastructure necessary to break the legacy brand ceiling.

• Elice Group is getting ready to complete its IPO on KOSDAQ in September. This is one of the largest IPOs in KOSDAQ this year. 
• The IPO price range is from 70,400 won to 90,500 won. The total offering amount is expected to be between 156.4 billion won  and 201.1 billion won.
• Elice Group provides full-stack AI solutions based on its proprietary AI cloud technology. Its core business is divided into AI Transformation (AX) and AI Cloud services.

• Coupang’s second-quarter 2026 results reflect a complex recovery phase following a disruptive data incident that affected customer behavior and financial performance.
• Consolidated revenue grew by 10% year-over-year on a constant currency basis, marking an improvement from the previous quarter and aligning with prior guidance.
• Product Commerce revenue grew 8% on a constant currency basis, with active customers increasing to 24.7 million, driven by returning higher-spending customers and new customer additions.

• Our WEEKLY tactical global macro recap/analysis for several markets and stocks we track, grouped by sector.
• We apply our quantitative models to each instrument’s trend, to determine which stocks/markets are just starting a trend, are in the middle of it, or are about to end it.
• Most overbought: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Gold and Oil. Most oversold: NetEase Cloud M,Nikkei 225,Hitachi, Broadcom

• The $8 billion (12 trillion won) inheritance tax overhang is fully resolved as of May 2026, with Chairman Lee Jae-yong maintaining tight control over Samsung Electronics and Samsung C&T without liquidating his own core holdings, relying instead on heavy bank loans and dividend flows.
• Samsung has formally delayed the mass production deployment of High-NA EUV machines until 2030 (at the 1nm node), choosing a cautious, cost-conscious path that mirrors TSMC, while relying on low-NA multi-patterning to contain spiraling capital intensity.
• Yesterday’s Board approval of a record KRW 90 trillion to KRW 110 trillion shareholder return package for 2026 represents a defensive move to appease institutional investors during a volatile memory cycle, but it severely limits the cash available for large-scale, core-technology M&A.

• August MTD marks the first monthly outflow since launch: SK hynix (000660 KS) 2x leveraged ETFs combined AUM fell 20% to KRW 4.2tn amid KRW 777bn in net outflows.
• The 2x Leveraged Index fell 4.7% despite the underlying stock remaining broadly flat, reflecting performance drag in a sideways market.
• The 2x inverse ETF lost 12.8% despite a broadly flat underlying stock, highlighting the risks of holding daily-reset products beyond very short trading periods.

• On 21 August, Kakao Corp announced that its BOD approved an equity spin off involving “Kakao AI” and “Kakao X.” 
• Going through the details regarding this plan, I believe this is NOT what the shareholders want. I am Negative on this equity spin-off plan
• I am mainly Negative on this spin-off since I do not have enough confidence of Kakao AI newco’s ability to significantly increase its sales and profits expected by the company.