Daily Woody Weekly | Oct 10, 2026 — Samsung’s $80B Quarter
Seoul’s stock market was open for only three days this week. Monday was a substitute holiday for National Foundation Day, and Friday was Hangeul Day. The KOSPI had climbed back above 7,000 in the final minutes of the previous Friday. It gave that level up on Tuesday, the first session after the break, as analysts pointed to the rise in U.S. Treasury yields over the holiday. Foreign investors sold a net 1.75 trillion won ($1.31 billion), and the index closed down 0.89% at 6,941.39.
On Wednesday the decline deepened. Oil prices and U.S. yields rose again, and investors waited for Samsung Electronics’ results the next morning. Analysts said a weak profit report from LG Electronics that day added to caution about earnings. Foreign net selling grew to 2.6 trillion won ($1.94 billion), and the KOSPI fell 1.98% to 6,803.90.
Thursday decided the week. Before the open, Samsung estimated third-quarter operating profit at 107.4 trillion won ($80.2 billion) on revenue of 195 trillion won ($145.7 billion). According to Reuters, no technology company had topped 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit before. The figure also beat the LSEG consensus of 106.1 trillion won. Samsung shares still closed down 2.42% at 262,000 won, and SK Hynix lost 2.44%. The KOSPI slid further into the close and finished down 2.62% at 6,625.93, its lowest close of the week.
Two explanations circulated. A Daishin Securities analyst cited profit-taking by investors who had bought ahead of the results. Financial News pointed to a cluster of mechanical selling: an options expiry, a rebalancing of chip-focused exchange-traded funds and concern that a Samsung share buyback was ending. Foreign and institutional investors together sold a net 3.66 trillion won ($2.7 billion) on Thursday. The Korea Times noted that foreign investors had been net sellers for eight straight sessions and that Samsung stock was about 30% below its June 19 peak. Josh Gilbert of eToro said a record that still fell short of some expectations “tells you just how demanding the AI trade has become.”
Samsung’s quarterly figures are preliminary estimates. Division-level numbers, including how much came from memory chips, arrive with the full report later this month. According to Reuters, the mobile unit is estimated to have lost more than $1 billion in the quarter as input costs rose.
| Indicator | Oct 8 (Thu) | Week |
|---|---|---|
| KOSPI | 6,625.93 | −377.81 (−5.39%) |
| KOSDAQ | 892.27 | −1.02 (−0.11%) |
| Won per dollar | 1,338.5 | −5.5 (won stronger) |
| Foreign net selling, 3 sessions | about 6.34 trillion won ($4.7 billion) | |
On Tuesday the Bank of Korea said foreign-exchange reserves stood at $440.56 billion at the end of September, down $1.72 billion from August. That broke a three-month run of gains, which had included a record monthly increase of $14.33 billion in August. The central bank listed three reasons: lower foreign-currency deposits from financial institutions, assets entrusted to the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Corporation, and a stronger dollar shrinking the value of non-dollar holdings. It said the size and timing of further transfers to the corporation have not been set.
The same day, Industry and Trade Minister Kim Jung-kwan told a parliamentary audit that Korea’s investment in an Alaska LNG project had not been decided. Washington had announced Korea’s participation as settled the previous week.
On Thursday the incoming side of the ledger arrived. The August current account surplus came to $46.11 billion, second only to June’s $49.73 billion. Goods exports on a balance-of-payments basis rose 82.1% from a year earlier to $104.8 billion, the third straight month above $100 billion. The surplus for January through August totaled $279.2 billion. That is already more than twice Korea’s full-year record of $123.05 billion, set in 2025. August was the 40th consecutive month in the black.
Under its investment agreement with Washington, Seoul has pledged $200 billion in U.S. investment and says it will keep annual remittances within $20 billion. The Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Corporation is the state body handling that investment.
Korea allowed single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds on Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix from May 27, a week before local elections. The products track twice each stock’s daily move. When chip shares fell sharply in July, retail holders took heavy losses. The opposition People Power Party has sought a parliamentary investigation since early September.
This week the fight moved into the annual audits. On Tuesday the party pointed to a closed-door meeting on Jan. 13, chaired by then-presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom, as the starting point and demanded the minutes. In a written reply to People Power Party lawmaker Kim Jae-seop, the presidential secretariat said no minutes were kept because the meeting was a closed-door consultation. Neither the materials submitted by the agencies that attended nor the advance comments from five invited financial firms showed who first proposed the products.
On Thursday Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eog-weon denied that the presidential office had ordered the products, saying the rule change fell under his commission. He apologized for the losses and volatility that followed.
Two numbers framed the dispute. Data from the Financial Supervisory Service showed retail clients of ten brokerages realized losses of 2.32 trillion won ($1.74 billion) on Samsung and SK Hynix single-stock leveraged and inverse products between May 27 and Aug. 14. The opposition cited a Citi estimate from late July that Korean retail investors had lost about $38.7 billion on leveraged ETFs. Citi worked backward from a fall in the market value of leveraged ETFs on Korean assets and the new money that kept flowing in. Its count included leveraged products on the KOSPI 200 index. Lee called the figure an informal market comment and said it was inaccurate.
The war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28 is in its eighth month. Washington keeps a naval blockade on Iranian ports, and the two sides have traded messages through mediators including Qatar and Pakistan. The latest exchange concerns an Iranian plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.
On Wednesday The Atlantic reported, citing two administration officials, that the White House had asked the Pentagon for Iran strike options that could be used before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. No decision had been made, and supporters of limited strikes acknowledged they would not by themselves bring Iran back to talks. Axios reported that the Pentagon had told Central Command days earlier to prepare for a possible return to major combat.
On Thursday President Donald Trump wrote that the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections,” citing productive discussions. He said the blockade would stay. The same day The New York Times reported that senior officials had recently discussed an intense three-day campaign. Axios noted that Trump’s public statements on Iran have not always matched his decisions. In Tehran, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was reviewing the U.S. reply to its seven-day plan and would answer within days.
The week’s Nobel announcements ran from medicine through literature before the peace prize came on Friday in Oslo. The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, 85, a South African jurist, “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.”
Pillay is a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Until recently she chaired the U.N. commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, and she now sits as a judge at the International Court of Justice in the genocide case against Myanmar. The committee said it wanted to remind the world that the rule of law underpins the system built to settle conflicts without violence.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called the prize a tribute to everyone defending international law. Al Jazeera reported that within hours President Trump said the committee had demeaned the prize, and that the White House imposed further sanctions on the International Criminal Court.
The dispute began in August. Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae recommended a candidate for a vacant Supreme Court seat on Aug. 18, and the presidential office asked him on Aug. 28 to recommend someone else, saying there had been no real consultation. Cho refused on Sept. 22 and later said he would explain himself at the parliamentary audit.
On Tuesday he appeared before the National Assembly’s judiciary committee as head of the court. He apologized for the long vacancy, then declined to take the witness oath or testify about the recommendation, citing the separation of powers. He read from prepared remarks instead. The presidential office’s request, he said, gave no specific reasons or constitutional grounds. Just as the chief justice has no say in the Assembly’s consent or the president’s appointment, he argued, neither the Assembly nor the president can intervene in his recommendation.
He stayed in his seat and answered some questions without being sworn in. He called the committee’s pressure on his recommendation unconstitutional and described past consultations with the presidential office as voluntary. MBC reported that he did not properly answer questions about his talks with the presidential office.
The ruling Democratic Party pressed him hard, while the opposition People Power Party defended him and blamed the presidential office. Korean media described the clash as the dominant issue of the audit’s first week.
Under Korea’s Constitution, Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president on the chief justice’s recommendation, with the National Assembly’s consent. Cho’s name also appears as Jo Hee-de in some English-language media.
On Sept. 21 a mine exploded during a patrol in the western Demilitarized Zone, wounding three South Korean soldiers. Last week North Korea called the blast a South Korean fabrication, and the U.N. Command said the mines violated the 1953 armistice.
On Monday the Joint Chiefs of Staff released its final findings. It concluded that North Korean troops had deliberately buried plastic anti-personnel mines south of the Military Demarcation Line about a year ago, during what Pyongyang calls border fortification work. At about 12:51 p.m. the same day, South Korean troops cleared the minefield. The Defense Ministry said it was the first time the military had physically removed a North Korean minefield south of the line. The military demanded an apology and said it would keep clearing mines if the North did not remove them itself.
Loudspeaker broadcasts toward the North, resumed after a 2015 mine blast, were considered but left out of the measures the government chose. The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the military counted more than 50 North Korean crossings of the line this year, up from 17 in 2025.
Officials in Seoul described the blast in different terms. On Wednesday Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told a parliamentary audit that it could not yet be classified as an attack, because intent had not been established. On Thursday Kim Yo-jong, a senior Workers’ Party official, cited his remark in a statement carried by state media and again denied the North’s responsibility. The same statement rejected a planned South Korean donation of medical equipment worth about 9.3 billion won ($7 million) to a Pyongyang hospital. It was her fourth statement since the blast.
The Military Demarcation Line is the actual border inside the 4-kilometer-wide DMZ. South Korea, the U.N. Command and North Korea do not draw it in exactly the same place, a gap that Stars and Stripes said the incident brought back into view.
Korea abolished its Prosecutors’ Office on Oct. 2, splitting investigation and indictment between a new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and a Public Prosecution Service. That same day a Seoul court paused a trial over the relocation of the presidential residence. The judges questioned whether prosecutors seconded to a special counsel under the old office could still appear in court, and moved closing arguments to Oct. 16. This week another court found that the prosecutors’ status had carried over to the new service and let a trial proceed, leaving courts divided.
On Wednesday the agency’s regional offices in Busan, Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju and Suwon held opening ceremonies. The same day a parliamentary committee scheduled the confirmation hearing of Kim Ji-yong, nominated as the agency’s first commissioner, for Oct. 14. Hard-liners in the ruling party have objected to his record, and the party leader said it was now time for the hearing.
By Sunday, Oct. 4, breaches had been confirmed at seven institutions: Shinhan, KB Kookmin, Hana and BNK Busan banks, Yegaram and Welcome savings banks, and Hyundai Capital. About 66,000 individuals were exposed, along with roughly 2,200 corporate records. The largest single leak was at Yegaram Savings Bank, with about 40,000 people, ahead of Shinhan at 25,729. In some cases resident registration numbers, annual income and loan limits were taken. President Lee Jae Myung said signs of AI use had emerged in some of the attacks, and police opened a full-scale investigation.
On Thursday Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eog-weon told lawmakers that the response to AI-driven threats had been seriously lacking even in basic areas. One lawmaker noted that firms had checked their logs over periods ranging from three months to a year. Another cited an average of 92 dedicated security staff at the four largest commercial banks against six at savings banks. Lee said rules that separate banks’ internal networks from the internet may need to change so that firms can use AI for defense.
On Friday, data released by an opposition lawmaker showed 18 suspected overseas hacking incidents at financial firms since 2024, with the attacker identified in only two.
- Mon, Oct 12Korea’s exports for Oct. 1–10. IMF and World Bank annual meetings open in Bangkok. Nobel economics prize announced.
- Wed, Oct 14Confirmation hearing for Kim Ji-yong, nominee to lead the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. U.S. September consumer price index, 8:30 a.m. ET.
- During the weekKorea’s September employment data. Parliamentary audits continue through Oct. 30.
- Fri, Oct 16Closing arguments in the presidential residence relocation budget case.
- Mon, Oct 19(the following week) Heads of the five largest commercial banks testify at the Financial Supervisory Service audit.
- Thu, Oct 22(the following week) Bank of Korea rate decision.
Anthropic’s Claude AI is used as a tool in gathering, analyzing and editing the news. Readers are encouraged to use their own judgment and cross-check.
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