Daily Woody | Jul 30, 2026 — Chips at a Record, Devices at a Loss
The Kospi opened Thursday at 5,681.77 and climbed to 5,976.82 intraday, within sight of 6,000. It gave all of that back after midday and closed down 1.23% at 5,593.56. The Kosdaq fell 2.70% to 644.78. The flow of money reversed. Individual investors, who had absorbed the selling all week, sold a net 1.42 trillion won on the main board, while foreign and institutional investors each bought about 1.3 trillion won. The won strengthened to 1,437.10 per dollar.
Samsung Electronics confirmed its second-quarter results that morning, and they were its largest ever: revenue of 171.50 trillion won and operating profit of 89.49 trillion won, up 130% and 1,813% from a year earlier. The semiconductor division alone earned 89.2 trillion won on 127.5 trillion won of revenue, a 69.96% operating margin. The device division reported an 800 billion won operating loss on 48 trillion won of revenue, its first loss on record. The memory prices that lifted one division raised component costs for the company’s own phones and appliances. The mobile unit alone lost 700 billion won. Samsung set the quarterly dividend at 374 won a share, 2.46 trillion won in total.
Both markets had been halted on Wednesday, the first back-to-back circuit breakers in Korean market history. The Kospi fell 5.98% to 5,663.24 that day after an intraday drop of 12.63%. SK hynix had reported a record quarter that same morning, with operating profit of 60.54 trillion won on a 76% margin — a level trailing only Micron's 81.2% among major chipmakers and above Nvidia's 65.6% and TSMC's 60.3%. Its shares fell 9.61% anyway, because FnGuide's consensus had called for 64.69 trillion won. The stock closed flat on Thursday.
Measured from the June 30 close of 8,476.48, the index is down 34.0% for the month, past the 27.25% fall of October 1997 and the 23.13% fall of October 2008. With one session left, it stands as the worst month since 1990. Against its record closing high of 9,114.55 on June 22, it is 38.6% lower.
Set the dates side by side. Single-stock leveraged ETFs tracking Samsung Electronics and SK hynix listed on May 27. A rule raising the minimum cash deposit for those products to 30 million won was announced on July 16 and takes effect on Friday, July 31. In the interval, the Kospi tripped nine circuit breakers. On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yun-cheol told a parliamentary committee that the government had not been thorough enough when the products were approved. The financial regulator and the supervisory service offered the same apology to a separate committee the same day. Thirteen days after the July 16 package, the four financial chiefs met again.
Friday's rule screens money coming in. It does not touch money already inside. Retail investors bought 1.10 trillion won of four leveraged ETFs on Tuesday alone — roughly a quarter of all individual buying on the main board — and the largest of those funds fell 28.43% that day. Bloomberg noted that Korea's world-beating rally this year rested almost entirely on two chipmakers; leverage products attached directly to those same two names make the index itself behave like a derivative. If entry is what regulation controls and exit is left to the market, the remaining positions will set the volatility after Friday. On Thursday individuals sold 1.42 trillion won and foreign and institutional buyers took the other side. The rule changes a day later.
Single-stock leveraged ETFs deliver twice the daily move of one company's shares. Most major markets either prohibit them or restrict them to professional investors; Korea approved them for retail buyers in May. Because Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together account for more than half of Kospi market value, leverage on those two names transmits directly into the benchmark. A circuit breaker suspends an entire market for 20 minutes once the index falls 8% for one minute; a sidecar freezes program sell orders for five minutes at a smaller threshold.
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate at 3.50–3.75% on Wednesday, a fifth consecutive hold after January, March, April and June. Nine of twelve voters agreed; three preferred a quarter-point increase. Chair Kevin Warsh, who took office in May and has since retired forward guidance, said the committee would act without hesitation if conditions warranted.
Markets treated the hold as a hawkish signal. The Dow fell 2.19% to 51,594.14, the S&P 500 slipped 1.52% to 7,316.15 and the Nasdaq lost 1.74% to 24,442.94, leaving it more than 10% below its record. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 5.33% and Micron fell about 10%. The 30-year Treasury yield pushed past 5.2%, its highest since July 2007.
The ruling Democratic Party puts a Criminal Procedure Act amendment to a National Assembly vote on Thursday. It cleared a judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday and the full committee on Wednesday, both without opposition participation. Prosecutors would lose the power to conduct supplementary investigations themselves and could only request them from police, who would have one month to comply, extendable by another.
The People Power Party and independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon plan a filibuster. Unlimited debate can be ended 24 hours after it begins with three-fifths of seated members, which pushes passage to Friday, the last day of the July session. A separate bill cutting the fast-track review ceiling from 330 days to 90 is on the same agenda.
The US-owned floating storage and regasification unit Energos Winter caught fire after an explosion at Damietta port on Egypt's Mediterranean coast on Wednesday. The fire spread to the Greek-owned carrier Gaslog Salem alongside it. The British maritime security firm Ambrey assessed a drone strike; Egyptian authorities recorded no casualties. Both vessels were moved to a safe area outside the port.
Asked about the attack at the White House, President Trump said he had been briefed, then said the United States had absorbed enough and would strike back hard. He stopped short of naming Iran while implying its involvement. Brent crude for September delivery settled 7.91% higher at $90.74 a barrel on ICE; WTI rose 6.56% to $84.46.
The exchange of fire had already resumed. US Central Command said Tuesday that Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles at American bases in the region, and US forces struck Iran-aligned militias inside Iraq. Iran condemned the American and Saudi strikes in Iraq as an inhumane provocation.
Damietta is a Mediterranean port, not a Gulf one. It is the third body of water in this conflict where merchant vessels have burned. What separates this incident from the others is that nobody has claimed it. Ambrey established the weapon; Egyptian authorities established the absence of casualties. Into that gap, the president promised retaliation without disclosing what the briefing contained.
Fighting had paused since July 24, and during the lull Iran's foreign ministry continued technical talks on Hormuz transit through Omani mediation. When an unclaimed attack becomes the basis for a response while a negotiating channel is open, the threshold for the next strike drops accordingly. It also leaves room for a third party to use that same path, knowing where the blame will land. DBS Bank expects Brent to trade between $80 and $100 in the near term.
Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae said at an emergency briefing on Wednesday morning that 13 people had died as of 8:30 a.m. following Tuesday's magnitude 7.1 earthquake near Uki, Kumamoto Prefecture. That figure includes cases where a link to the quake is still being verified. The prefectural disaster headquarters, counting only confirmed deaths, listed three dead, five in cardiac arrest, 31 injured and seven missing. The two counts use different criteria and should not be compared directly.
At the Aeon Mall Kumamoto in Kashima, part of the roof and outer wall collapsed with an explosion around 6 p.m. on the day of the quake, killing two women in their twenties. A senior government official told Yomiuri Shimbun that liquefied petroleum gas inside the building may have leaked and ignited. More than 90,000 residents in two cities received the highest-level evacuation notice, and more than 260,000 across Kumamoto and Nagasaki were told to evacuate.
Roughly 36,900 households lost power, 84,000 lost water and 9,500 lost gas service. TSMC has confirmed that its local plant escaped serious damage, though semiconductor fabs need time to restore normal output after any shutdown. Toyota has suspended three Kyushu plants through Friday. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned that strong aftershocks remain likely for about a week. South Korea's foreign ministry has received no reports of Korean nationals hurt.
Coupang Inc. reported $2.37 million in US lobbying for the first half of 2026 under Senate disclosure rules. That is already above its $2.27 million full-year total for 2025, and 115.5% higher than the $1.10 million it spent in the first half of last year. It used in-house staff and six outside firms to reach the White House, both chambers of Congress, and the State, Commerce and Trade Representative offices.
American political action moved in steps over the same period. The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Coupang in February for records on Korean investigations and penalties. In April, Representative Michael Baumgartner and 54 Republican colleagues wrote to Seoul demanding an end to what they called discriminatory treatment. The committee published an interim report on July 1, and on July 22 Baumgartner introduced an immigration bill that would bar or deport foreign officials involved in economic discrimination against American firms. Its findings cite EU action against Google and Brazilian rules on US platforms alongside Korea.
Coupang says the lobbying is lawful and aimed at US exports, American jobs and stronger bilateral trade ties; it presented itself as a Seattle-headquartered technology company when it entered the Fortune Global 500 on July 28. Korea's Fair Trade Commission says it applies identical standards regardless of a platform's nationality.
The Comprehensive Special Counsel led by Kwon Chang-young indicted Kim Tae-hyo, former first deputy national security adviser, on Wednesday on charges of taking an important role in insurrection and abuse of authority. It is the third indictment by the team since it was established in February. Prosecutors allege that Kim used national security office and foreign ministry officials to send allied governments, including Washington, a message justifying martial law. The declaration came on December 3, 2024.
The message reportedly described the declaration as a defense of liberal democracy and as a political demonstration within constitutional limits, framed as a response to parliamentary impeachment motions and budget cuts. The counsel believes former president Yoon Suk-yeol directed Kim and former national security adviser Shin Won-sik to deliver that explanation. Investigators searched Kim's home and university office in April; a detention warrant sought on July 7 was granted on grounds of possible evidence tampering, and his petition for review was dismissed.
The counsel said it separated Yoon and Shin, both co-suspects, and will indict them later. Its mandate ran to July 24 before a July 21 amendment extended it to August 23, with no further extension available.
What the indictment describes is documents and phone calls. There is no allegation that Kim moved troops or handled weapons. He explained a declaration that had already been made, through diplomatic channels, to governments abroad. The counsel's theory is that the explanation was itself part of the work of sustaining martial law. If the court accepts it, the boundary of an insurrection role extends past the units that executed the order and into the work of justifying it afterward. If the court rejects it, the framing of the remaining indictments weakens with it.
Courts have already blocked this team on similar grounds. Of seventeen detention warrants sought before audit commissioner Yoo Byung-ho’s hearing, eleven were denied, a 64.7% rejection rate. The insurrection counsel ran at 46.1%, the Kim Keon-hee counsel at 31% and the counsel on the marine’s death at 90%, while prosecutors nationwide were refused 21.1% of the time last year. In the cases of former army operations commander Kang Ho-pil and former presidential discipline secretary Lee Si-won, judges wrote that the alleged offence itself was open to dispute. That is the same ground Kim Tae-hyo’s trial will be fought on. Before the August 23 deadline, decisions are also due on whether to charge Kim Keon-hee, who declined to answer questions, and on former land minister Won Hee-ryong.
The Comprehensive Special Counsel is a single team, not three, investigating the December 2024 martial law declaration, related foreign-policy conduct and alleged influence-peddling involving Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife. Korean special counsels operate under a statute passed for each case, with a fixed mandate and separate charging authority; this team's authority ends on August 23 regardless of the state of its cases.
Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yun-cheol convened the four financial chiefs at 6 p.m. Wednesday, thirteen days after the previous package. Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun-song, Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won and Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin attended. The meeting agreed to cap individual holdings of single-stock leveraged products, with one option limiting them to 20% of a person's total investment, and to add costs to excessive trading.
The July 16 measure will be brought forward to Friday: buyers must hold 30 million won in cash, up from 10 million won that could include stocks, ETFs and bonds as collateral. Other options under review include changing the leverage multiple and confining new purchases to professional investors. Seoul Economic Daily judged the outcome largely empty, noting that beyond expanded monitoring the authorities offered no stabilization mechanism.
The Korean Bar Association has cancelled former president Yoon Suk-yeol's registration as a lawyer, acting on an order from the Ministry of Justice. Yoon received a final seven-year sentence from the Supreme Court for obstructing his own arrest by the Corruption Investigation Office. Korean law bars registration for a set period after a custodial sentence becomes final.
On the same day, the police special investigation headquarters referred Yoon to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, without detention, on suspicion of publishing false information under the Public Official Election Act. The allegation concerns statements about his wife during the presidential campaign. The unit inherited files from the three earlier special counsels on insurrection, Kim Keon-hee and the marine's death.
The Bank of Korea's composite business sentiment index for July, released Thursday, came in at 98.5, up 0.8 point from June and reversing a one-month decline. Readings above 100 indicate sentiment better than the long-run average.
Manufacturing carried it. The manufacturing index rose 2.0 points to 103.2, a third straight month above the line, with new orders up 0.8 point and business conditions up 0.7. Machinery and equipment covering shipbuilding, defense and semiconductors led, along with medical and precision instruments — the latter helped by orders tied to overseas data-center construction and chip production.
Non-manufacturing fell 0.2 point. Transport and warehousing lost 9 points on business conditions and 8 on profitability as freight volumes thinned and costs rose; retail and wholesale slipped 3 points on higher shipping rates. The broader economic sentiment index rose 1.1 points to 97.9. Firms named raw material prices (21.8% of manufacturers) and weak domestic demand (18.4% of non-manufacturers) as their main constraints.
SK hynix told analysts on Wednesday that holders can convert Nasdaq-listed American depositary receipts into Korean common shares from Thursday, the day after its supplementary listing on the Korea Exchange completes. Ten ADRs equal one common share. Conversion in the other direction requires regulatory filing and is capped at the 17.79 million shares issued in the offering, so two-way arbitrage stays limited. The ADR closed at $126.79 on Wednesday, below its $149 offering price, while the Seoul shares ended at 1,401,000 won.
The company has completed long-term supply agreement talks with more than ten customers including core accounts, typically on five-year terms with conditions varying by customer and product. Cash and equivalents reached 88 trillion won at the end of the second quarter, up 33.6 trillion won in three months.
Samsung Electronics released its divisional figures on Thursday morning. Memory revenue of 120.8 trillion won accounted for most of the semiconductor division's total, and the foundry business improved on HBM base-die orders and demand from American customers. The company said it expanded HBM4 supply and shipped the industry's first HBM4E samples. Samsung Display earned 700 billion won on 7.5 trillion won of revenue, and Harman 400 billion won on 4.6 trillion won.
| Thu 30 | Fri 31 | Sat 1 | Sun 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | — | 21–27°C | 21–27°C | 21–27°C |
| High | 32–39°C | 31–38°C | 32–38°C | 32–38°C |
| Sky | Central partly cloudy · South and Jeju mostly clear | |||
On Wednesday morning a Korean memory maker reported a 76% operating margin, a level almost no manufacturer of anything reaches. By the close its shares had fallen 9.61%. On Thursday morning Samsung disclosed that it had earned 89.2 trillion won making chips and lost 800 billion won making devices. The same morning the Bank of Korea reported manufacturing sentiment above its long-run average for a third month. In between, the Kospi was halted twice and then fell for a third day.
The three numbers point at different periods. Earnings describe a quarter that ended. Sentiment describes last month. The index prices a quarter that has not started. What matters is the order in which the bill arrives. Leveraged products listed in May; the deposit requirement takes effect on Friday. The Criminal Procedure Act amendment passed a subcommittee and a full committee in two days and reaches the floor today. The deputy prime minister said on Wednesday that the products had not been examined thoroughly enough.
Confirmation runs late. The confirmation that arrived on Thursday morning carried the index to within sight of 6,000. By the close the market had given all of it back.
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