Most Popular
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Opposition-led Assembly unilaterally passes bill to probe Marine's death
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Golden chance to liquidate babies’ gold rings?
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Inflation eases in April, continues bumpy ride
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Seoul to more than double military drones by 2026 to counter NK threats
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Russia sent more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to N. Korea in March: White House
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Seoul alerts overseas missions to NK terror threats
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Over 60% of S. Koreans support W100m childbirth incentive: survey
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Key suspects grilled over alleged abuse of power in Marine death inquiry
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‘Inside Out 2’ adds four new emotions, explores teenage life
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Questions raised over fair promotion of RM, NewJeans
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Experts positive on Kospi’s rally despite concerns over bubble
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi closed above the 3,000 points for the first time Thursday, as well as rising to an all-time high of 3,055.28 during intraday trading. Retail investors’ buying binge led the historic 3,000-point milestone a day earlier although the index ended up closing at 2,968.21 points. While the era of Kospi 3,000 has wide opened, multiple brokerage houses raised stock price outlook for this year, setting the upper-end target band to 2,830-3,500 points. They predic
Jan. 7, 2021
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FSS to inspect Samsung Securities for allegedly breaching capital market rules
The market watchdog Financial Supervisory Service will launch a three-week comprehensive inspection of Samsung Securities on Monday, officials said Thursday. The comprehensive inspection on the nation’s leading brokerage will be the first of its kind since April 2018, when the firm was under FSS inspection over a dividend fiasco in which it mistakenly paid stocks to employees as dividends instead of cash dividends. During the planned inspection, the financial authorities will mainly look
Jan. 7, 2021
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Bitcoin tops W40m in S. Korea for 1st time
Bitcoin topped 40 million won ($36,800) per unit for the first time in South Korea on Thursday, a local cryptocurrency exchange said. Bitcoin was trading at 40.9 million won as of 8:58 a.m., up 6.94 percent from the previous day, according to local cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb. It just took 11 days for the cryptocurrency to top the 40 million-won mark after it broke the 30 million-won threshold on Dec. 27, 2020. The bitcoin price jumped 380 percent compared with a year earlier. The bull ru
Jan. 7, 2021
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Seoul stocks open higher on US gains
South Korean stocks opened higher Thursday, tracking overnight Wall Street gains that were largely generated by the Democrats' control of the US Senate. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 44.46 points, or 1.5 percent, to 3,012.67 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks gained ground amid expectations that the US political paradigm shift would help increase spending to stimulate the world's largest economy and benefit its export-driven trade partners. Market bellwe
Jan. 7, 2021
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Kospi’s 38-year road to 3,000-point mark
Buoyed by the increasing participation of small investors and their growing clout in South Korea’s stock market, the nation’s main bourse reached a historic high on Wednesday, surpassing 3,000 points for the first time in the stock market’s 38-year history. The benchmark Kospi was launched by the nation’s sole bourse operator Korea Exchange on Jan. 4, 1983, three years after the base value of 100 was decided. It kicked off trading at 122.5 points with 328 listed firms on
Jan. 6, 2021
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Retail investors, hopes of recovery open up era of Kospi 3000
An estimated 10 million retail investors, a weak dollar and hope for recovery pushed the benchmark Kospi above the 3,000-point threshold on Wednesday in what could be a new era for the local stock market. Analysts say many factors have driven the rally, including the weak dollar and anticipation for improved corporate earnings, but the biggest force may be legions of small investors, known locally as “ants.” The “ant warriors,” who purchased 60 trillion won ($52.22 bi
Jan. 6, 2021
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Key shareholders unload additional stake in Doosan Fuel Cell
Nine shareholders of Doosan Fuel Cell Co. sold their combined 8.13 percent stake in the fuel cell maker via a block deal, the company said Wednesday. "The stake sale was a part of Doosan Group's self-rescue plan," a company official said by phone. The shareholders were reported to have raised around 274.5 billion won ($252.7 million) via the block deal. The shareholders include Park Jeong-won, chairman of cash-squeezed Doosan Group. After the sale, the combined stake in Doosan Fuel
Jan. 6, 2021
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Kospi touches 3,000 points with retail investors’ buying binge
South Korean retail investors, who have been on a buying spree in recent months, brought benchmark indexes to fresh highs during intraday trading Wednesday. The Kospi touched 3,000 points for the first time in the market’s 38-year history in the early morning session, stretching to as high as 3,027.16 points. But the Kospi pulled back to close at 2,968.21 points, down 22.36 points, or 0.8 percent, shy of the previous session‘s close. The Kospi had maintained a record run for six c
Jan. 6, 2021
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NPS to oppose Korean Air’s capital increase scheme
South Korea’s public pension fund the National Pension Service said Tuesday it would vote against Korean Air’s plan to issue new common shares, which is deemed pivotal to the planned takeover of debt-ridden rival Asiana Airlines. NPS, which was holding a 6.96 percent stake in Korean Air as of September, said in a statement the flag carrier’s move to issue new shares is detrimental to its shareholder value. The red flags range from Korean Air‘s hasty decision to acquire
Jan. 5, 2021
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Stocks extend record rally for 6 trading days
South Korea’s stock market rallied Tuesday as investor appetite for equities in one of the world’s fastest-growing bourses continued to gain momentum. The Korea Exchange’s main board Kospi jumped 1.6 percent to end at 2,990.57 points Tuesday. While off to a muted start in the morning, the index shot up approximately 30 minutes before the market close. The 916 constituents’ combined market cap approached 2,060 trillion won ($1.9 trillion). The Kospi, as a result,
Jan. 5, 2021
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Brokerages raise target prices of Samsung Electronics on chip market recovery
As tech giant Samsung Electronics’ stock has set fresh record highs for three consecutive sessions and crossed the psychological threshold of 80,000 won ($73.66), South Korean brokerage firms have raised their target prices for the firm on signs of a recovery in demand in the global memory chip market, reports showed Tuesday. Some analysts predicted the world’s top memory chip maker’s stock price to rise as high as 111,000 won, up from their prior average target price of 86,0
Jan. 5, 2021
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SK Biopharm shares slump as lock-up expires
SK Biopharmaceuticals shares plummeted as much as 10 percent Monday as almost 5 million shares were released after a lock-up period. Shares in the pharmaceutical company declined 8.58 percent to close at 154,500 won ($142) after plunging as much as 10 percet during trade as the last batch of shares that were locked in after the initial public offering were freed to the market. The benchmark Kospi rose 2.47 percent to 2,944.45 points on Monday. Over 4.9 million additional shares held by
Jan. 4, 2021
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Stock rally nears turning point as Kospi market cap tops W2,000tr
Stock analysts began to look for signs that the current bull market will end its run, as stocks in South Korea got started the year strongly on Monday, setting yet another all-time high on the first trading day of 2021. The Korea Exchange’s main board, the Kospi, closed at 2,944.45 points on Monday, up 2.5 percent from the previous close. The combined market capitalization of the Kospi’s 916 constituents, including electronics giant Samsung Electronics, exceeded 2,028.3 trillion wo
Jan. 4, 2021
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K bank upgrades mobile app for tailored services
K bank, South Korea’s first internet-only bank, said Monday that it had revamped its mobile application to provide tailored services to its customers. Designed as a personal finance platform, the app operates an open banking system that allows users to transfer and withdraw money from accounts registered at separate banking institutions. Once a customer logs in, the main page of the K bank app displays the list of all accounts held by that customer. Customers can also personalize the
Jan. 4, 2021
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Market leaders call for innovation, risk management amid lingering uncertainty
Leaders of state-run investment institutes and private brokerage firms here said they would accelerate digital transformation of the market and beef up their risk management capabilities in the face of lingering pandemic uncertainties. The Korea Exchange, the nation‘s sole securities exchange operator, said it would seek ways to expand the market entries of promising companies and secure market fairness by strengthening regulations on short selling. “The KRX will support innovative
Jan. 4, 2021
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Banking groups face challenge as pandemic-led digitalization accelerates
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of the financial industry, pushing local banking groups to cater services to require less contact. The heated competition to gain a digital foothold in the industry pose as a key task for the firms this year, experts and head of the groups said Monday. “Local banks must bolster their risk management, while seeking for fresh revenue sources in the era of near-zero interest rates and improve the com
Jan. 4, 2021
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Seoul stocks open higher on 1st day of 2021
South Korean stocks kicked off higher Monday, the first session of the new year, led by strong chip and auto gains. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 4.48 points, or 0.16 percent, to 2,877.95 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics lost 0.37 percent, but No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix advanced 2.95 percent. Top automaker Hyundai Motor soared 6.77 percent, and its auto part making affiliate Hyundai Mobis spiked 12.13 percent. Leading chem
Jan. 4, 2021
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Number of delisted firms quadruples in 2020
The number of companies delisted from the South Korean stock market rose fourfold in 2020 from the previous year due to poor financial health or other reasons, data showed Monday. A total of 16 firms, including solar-battery parts maker Woongjin Energy Co., were delisted from the country's main KOSPI and secondary KOSDAQ markets last year, according to the data from the Korea Exchange. Three companies were removed from the main bourse and the remainder from the tech-laden KOSDAQ market. Of th
Jan. 4, 2021
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[Market Close-up] Korean market gains momentum from individual investors
Cho Young-hoon, a 40-year-old office worker living in Seoul, had no interest in capital investment, before the pandemic hit last year. Following in his parents’ footsteps, he strongly believed in real estate investment, and considered buying stocks to be too risky and not as profitable as owning an apartment in Seoul. Buying an apartment using his savings, jeonse deposit and a mortgage loan was his strategy for over a decade. But then, in December 2019, the government made an unprecedent
Jan. 3, 2021
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Small shareholders' clout grows at Samsung
Holdings of small shareholders in the nation’s largest company, Samsung Electronics, grew to 6.5 percent in 2020, up from 3.6 percent at the end of 2019, data showed Sunday. The number of small stockholders is expected to have more than tripled from 568,313 to 2 million during the same period. Small shareholders refer to individual investors who have less than a 1 percent stake. The portion of Samsung shares held by retail traders in 2019 stood at 3.6 percent in end-2019 while domestic
Jan. 3, 2021