Daily Woody | Jul 6, 2026 — Samsung's Best Quarter Ever, and Korea's Chip Super Week
Samsung Electronics releases preliminary second-quarter results on July 7, and the numbers are expected to be its best ever. The analyst consensus compiled by FnGuide points to about 169 trillion won ($111 billion) in revenue and roughly 85.5 trillion won ($55.9 billion) in operating profit — eighteen times the same quarter a year ago, when the figure was 4.7 trillion won.
Three days later, on July 10, SK hynix debuts its American depositary receipts on the Nasdaq, aiming to raise about $29.7 billion. The two events fall in the same week, framing Korea's memory duo for global investors just as the sector's momentum is being questioned.
The consensus headline understates the machine underneath it. Heavy performance-bonus provisions land in this quarter; strip them out and analysts put Samsung's underlying earning power above 100 trillion won for three months — more than U.S. rival Micron, itself up fifteenfold on the year, earned across an entire fiscal quarter.
That is also why the timing matters. Last week the KOSPI fell 3.84 percent to 8,088 after a Meta remark revived fears that Big Tech's AI spending could cool. Samsung's print and SK hynix's Nasdaq bow arrive as the first hard test of whether the memory cycle is peaking or still climbing. The record itself is not in doubt; what investors read from it is.
A June 29 pledge is now becoming machinery. At Sunday's party-government meeting, the Lee administration set up a presidential semiconductor committee and promised to fund up to 100 percent of the power and water infrastructure for a new chip hub in the southwest.
The private commitment totals 896 trillion won ($578 billion): 425 trillion from Samsung, 470 trillion from SK Group, and 1 trillion from packaging firm Amkor. The state must supply 6.3 gigawatts of power and 650,000 tons of water a day — and officials have brushed aside doubts that a region long outside the chip belt can carry that load.
A House Judiciary Committee report on July 1, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, said Korea ran a “whole-of-government” campaign against Coupang after a 2025 data breach, in breach of last year's trade deal. The White House then called the U.S.-listed retailer “singled out” and voiced concern over “discriminatory targeting.”
Seoul rejected the claims. National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said investigations followed due process and did not turn on nationality. Regulators had fined Coupang roughly $410 million over the breach and a separate ad-data case.
Speaking at Beijing's World Peace Forum on July 4, Iran's ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said Tehran would “definitely” charge vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, while promising “special” terms for China and other friendly states. He framed the levy as payment for security and navigation, not a toll.
Washington disagrees. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said any final deal bars Iran from charging for passage, dismissing the fee-versus-toll distinction as semantics. Before the war, roughly a fifth of the world's oil and LNG moved through the strait; the fees could be worth about $40 billion a year to Tehran.
The war cost Iran most of its leverage. The strait is what it has left. By charging for passage — and quietly discounting Beijing — Tehran turns a waterway it can no longer close into one it can still price, and ties its largest customer to the arrangement. The discount is the point: it makes China a stakeholder in fees Washington wants abolished.
The two navies begin week-long drills near Qingdao from July 6 to 13, China's defense ministry and Russian state media said. Russia's Pacific Fleet sent the guided-missile cruiser Varyag, a corvette, a submarine and a rescue ship; the cruiser docked Sunday. China committed destroyers, a frigate and a submarine from its Northern Theater Command.
Afterward, some units will run a joint patrol in the Pacific — last year such patrols reached as far as waters near Guam and Hawaii. The exercise follows a late-June Chinese-Russian air patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
Seven core OPEC+ members agreed on Sunday to raise August output by 188,000 barrels a day, matching June and July. That brings the additions since the war began to about 940,000 barrels a day, close to 1 percent of global demand. Brent traded near $72 on Friday, down 43 percent from a wartime peak above $120.
With the strait reopening and the IEA flagging a second-half surplus, several banks see prices drifting lower still. Citi projects Brent at $60 to $65 by year-end.
The chip boom has handed Seoul an unusual problem: too much tax revenue. At Sunday's meeting, presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said the government would build a “Future Response Fund” from the surplus, steering it into the three megaprojects, youth housing and jobs, and measures to narrow “K-shaped” inequality.
The fund's size is undecided, but the surplus behind it is not small — expected to run into the tens of trillions of won, well past prior forecasts. The opposition calls the plan politically tilted toward the Honam southwest, a Democratic Party stronghold.
Korea's president first floated the idea on June 8. A rival proposal would route the same money into a sovereign wealth fund launching later this year — the debate now is about the vessel, not the intent.
Follow the money and it makes a loop. The tax comes largely from two chipmakers; the fund's first named destination is the megaprojects — and the largest of those is the $578 billion southwest cluster those same chipmakers are building. Money earned by chips would be steered back toward chips. That is efficient when the cycle runs hot. It also leaves the country's future funding leaning on one industry at its peak, which is exactly when a single bet feels safest and is least so.
The Seoul Bankruptcy Court terminated the rehabilitation of retailer Homeplus on July 3, about sixteen months after it began. Unless roughly 200 billion won ($130 million) is raised within 14 days, the chain faces liquidation.
The fallout reaches far beyond the company, which employs about 12,000 people and still owes more than 150 small suppliers. Homeplus was taken private in a 2015 leveraged buyout by MBK Partners — and a court examiner now values it higher broken up than kept alive, the crux of yesterday's essay edition.
The National Pension Service resumed rebalancing its domestic stock portfolio on July 1, and the feared “sell-off bomb” did not detonate. Over the first three trading days it net-sold 215.8 billion won ($141 million) of KOSPI shares — then turned net buyer on Friday.
It cut winners such as Samsung Electronics, up 178 percent in the first half, and bought SK hynix, up 307 percent, its single biggest purchase at 108 billion won. The fund raised its domestic-equity target to 20.8 percent from 14.9 percent in May, forcing the adjustment as the rally pushed it above target.
The NPS manages more than 2,000 trillion won ($1.47 trillion) and is the largest single owner of Korean stocks — so its mechanical rebalancing moves markets on its own.
Samsung is negotiating to raise contract DRAM prices by up to 20 percent in the third quarter, according to reports from Korea's ZDNet and China's Yicai, with LPDDR possibly higher. It would follow jumps of about 90 percent in the first quarter and 50 to 60 percent in the second.
Whether Samsung gets its full 20 percent is unsettled: research firm TrendForce expects contract prices to rise a smaller 13 to 18 percent as consumer demand cools. Either way, end-makers say the cost will reach shoppers — Apple has already blamed memory prices for higher device tags.
Overcast nationwide today (Mon 6th) with rain in places. The Seoul metropolitan area can expect 20–60mm as the summer rain band lingers. Highs of 26–32°C bring heat and humidity. The south coast and Jeju face especially heavy rain.
| Mon 6 | Tue 7 | Wed 8 | Thu 9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sky | Cloudy, rain | Rain (central) | Cloudy, some rain | Cloudy (central) |
| Low | 20–24°C | 21–24°C | 21–25°C | 21–25°C |
| High | 26–32°C | 27–34°C | 26–34°C | 27–34°C |
Advisory: a stationary front may bring locally heavy hourly rain to central and southern regions. Watch for flash floods and low-lying flooding. (KMA, as of 5 p.m. July 5)
Read Monday's Korea file in order and one thread runs through it. On Tuesday Samsung is set to report its best quarter ever. The tax on profits like these is now large enough that the government wants a new fund to hold it. The fund's first destination is the megaprojects, and the biggest of those is the $578 billion chip cluster in the southwest that broke ground, in policy terms, this weekend. Money earned by chips would be routed back toward chips.
The loop is not a flaw; while the cycle runs hot it is simply efficient. The risk is what it rests on. A country funding its future from one industry is strong only as long as that industry is — and last week's 3.8 percent KOSPI slide, on hints that Big Tech's AI spending might slow, was a reminder of how fast the mood can turn. Four gigawatts of new power and 650,000 tons of water a day still have to be found for plants that will run for decades. The windfall is real. So is the fact that what a future needs is more than money.
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