Most Popular
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Korean labor force to shrink by 10 million by 2044: report
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[AtoZ Korean Mind] Does your job define who you are? Should it?
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Allegations surrounding BTS resurface, enraged fans demand apology
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Students with history of violence will be barred from becoming teachers
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Top prosecutor pledges 'speedy, strict' probe into first lady's luxury bag allegations
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Medical feud leaves hospitals in financial crisis
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'Super Rich in Korea' will leave viewers appreciating Korea more: producers
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'Queen of Tears' riding high on Netflix chart
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Samsung mocks Apple over iPhone alarm glitch
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Chip up cycle won’t stay long: SK chief
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PEI to hold Infrastructure Investor Seoul Summit virtually
Financial intelligence firm PEI is poised to host this year‘s Infrastructure Investor Seoul Summit virtually on Sept. 8, the company said Wednesday. The event comes as the London-based company looks to provide a virtual place for the global infrastructure investing community to connect with South Korean institutional investors looking for chances to allocate their capital to alternative assets across the world. The event will mark the third of its kind in Seoul. Due to travel restrictio
Sept. 2, 2020
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Kakao Games IPO pre-orders set new record
Kakao Games, the gaming arm of local mobile messenger giant Kakao, set a record in South Korea on Wednesday by drawing the greatest value of preorder deposits for public subscription of its initial public offering. Retail investors had submitted some 58.55 trillion won ($49.34 billion) in deposits during the two-day preorder session for stocks of Kakao Games, nearly double the record of 30.99 trillion won set by SK Biopharmaceuticals in June. The amount of deposits surged more rapidly as time
Sept. 2, 2020
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Stocks rise to attractive destination as dovish Fed continues: Barings
Top officials of US investment firm Barings said Wednesday that stocks appear to be an attractive destination for investors, propelled by the US central bank’s dovish stance to support monetary expansions coupled with signs of recovery in the economy. Foreign investors can take advantage of a currency hedging premium thanks to the dovish US Federal Reserve and following weaker US dollar when investing in emerging market stocks including ones in Korea, the officials noted. During a teleco
Sept. 2, 2020
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Credit loans soar in August amid ultra-low interest rates, stricter mortgage rules
South Korea’s major banks saw their credit loan balance rise by more than 4 trillion won ($3.37 billion) on-month in August, data showed Wednesday, due to persisting ultra-low interest rates, as well as side effects from new loan regulations. Outstanding personal loans extended to individuals by the nation’s five major lenders -- KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, Hana and NH NongHyup -- stood at nearly 124.27 trillion won last month, up 4.76 trillion won from a month earlier. This
Sept. 2, 2020
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Seoul stocks open higher on Wall Street gains
South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday, taking a cue from overnight gains in US markets. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 10.1 points, or 0.43 percent, to 2,359.65 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Seoul shares closed up 1.01 percent Tuesday on investors' bargain hunting and the government's record budget proposal for next year. Wall Street ended higher Tuesday on the back of a tech rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7 percent, and the tec
Sept. 2, 2020
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New financial centers may emerge amid COVID-19 disruption: APG
The unraveling disruption caused by the novel coronavirus might dent the role of the traditional financial hubs, while surprising candidates are likely to take their place with their own speciallizations in the wake of decentralization playing out due to COVID-19, said APG Asset Management Chief Executive Ronald Wuijster on Tuesday. Surprising candidates could be Busan in South Korea, Casablanca in Morocco and Malaysia‘s Kuala Lumpur, Wuijster said during a speech at the Jeonbuk Internati
Sept. 1, 2020
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Shinhan Bank, SKT to roll out 5G-based financial services
Commercial bank Shinhan Bank said Tuesday that it has joined forces with mobile network firm SK Telecom to develop financial services based on 5G mobile edge computing technology. The mobile edge computing, or MEC, is a core 5G technology that helps reduce network latency and process data efficiently by installing small-sized data centers at base stations. Through the partnership, the two companies will launch R&D projects to design advanced financial services based on the 5G technology,
Sept. 1, 2020
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Seoul stocks rebound on bargain hunting, massive budget proposal
South Korean shares rebounded Tuesday from a decline of over 1 percent the previous session, largely due to investors' bargain hunting for undervalued heavyweights and the government's record budget proposal for next year. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 23.38 points, or 1.01 percent, to close at 2,349.55. Trading volume was high at about 1.1 billion shares worth some 16.1 trillion won ($13.6 billion), with gainers outnu
Sept. 1, 2020
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[Market Close-up] Korea seeks to stamp out naked short selling
To keep stock market volatility at bay amid concerns that COVID-19 will continue to affect the market next year, South Korea has extended its temporary ban on short-selling activities of all listed Korean shares to March 2021. And the government is set to toughen penalties against illegal acts such as naked short selling. Financial authorities are also hoping to build a monitoring system that allows them to detect any irregularities in foreign investors‘ borrowing and lending of Korean st
Sept. 1, 2020
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KTCU to commit W150b to VC investment
South Korean institutional investor the Korea Teachers’ Credit Union said Tuesday that it planned to commit 150 billion won ($126.8 million) to 10 external partners this year to create blind pool funds for venture investments. KTCU will pick three large venture capital houses, four mid-sized VCs and three rookie VCs. Eligible candidates must be based in Korea. Applications will be accepted by Sept. 24. Selected partners will be announced in late November and will have to complete the i
Sept. 1, 2020
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Moon to meet top bankers for ‘New Deal’ fund outline
President Moon Jae-in will meet with top executives of Korea’s five major banking giants on Thursday to discuss measures to promote the government’s social infrastructure investment scheme, dubbed the “New Deal fund,” industry sources said Tuesday. Set up to support the Korean version of the “New Deal” initiative unveiled in July, the envisioned fund will mainly finance digitalization of national infrastructure and provide at least a 3 percent rate of retur
Sept. 1, 2020
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Seoul stocks open higher on US tech gains
South Korean shares opened higher Tuesday on overnight tech gains on Wall Street, despite a surge in new coronavirus cases here. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 16.1 points, or 0.69 percent, to 2,342.27 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Trading kicked off bullish after a 1.17 percent plunge in the previous session amid virus woes. Investor sentiment was boosted after the tech-savvy Nasdaq Composite advanced 86.75 points, or 0.76 percent, to close at 11,466.47
Sept. 1, 2020
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Seoul stocks plunge over 1% on record-high foreign dumping
South Korean shares dipped more than 1 percent Monday, as foreign sell-offs soared to an all-time high amid the spreading new coronavirus fears. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 27.63 points, or 1.17 percent, to close at 2,326.17. Trading volume was high at about 1.6 billion shares worth some 19 trillion won ($16 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 498 to 350. The index set out strong on the Fed's dovish signal but t
Aug. 31, 2020
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Kakao Games likely to issue most successful IPO in Korea
The initial public offering of Kakao Games is likely to be the most successful market debut in South Korea’s history in terms of the number of applicants for its shares, according to market watchers on Monday. In the two-day book building for institutional investors that wrapped up on Thursday, a total of 1,745 domestic and foreign institutional investors participated in the tranche and bid for 11.28 million shares, or 70.49 percent of the total. Competition for stocks by institutional
Aug. 31, 2020
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Korean pension funds cushion pandemic impact in H1
South Korea’s pension funds took positive returns in the first half of this year, as they managed to weather the impact of the novel coronavirus on financial markets across the globe, disclosures showed Monday. The National Pension Service, Korea’s largest public pension fund with 752.2 trillion won ($635.5 billion) assets under management, posted a 0.5 percent return Friday as its stock losses were offset by fixed-income assets and alternative investments. By asset classes, from
Aug. 31, 2020
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JB Financial launches Vietnam-based brokerage firm JBSV
JB Financial Group said Monday it has launched a brokerage unit through its newly acquired Morgan Stanley Gateway Securities, a midsized brokerage firm headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam. It has changed the company name to JB Securities Vietnam as part of a move to officially start operations, the group added. Earlier in April, the banking group paid for its 100 percent stake in MSGS -- previously owned by global investment bank Morgan Stanley -- and recently received final approval from
Aug. 31, 2020
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Seoul stocks open sharply higher on economic rebound hopes
South Korean shares opened sharply higher Monday on hopes of an economic rebound, despite the government's implementation of toughened social distancing measures. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 22.97 points, or 0.98 percent, to 2,376.77 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Investor sentiment ran high in the wake of the US Fed Reserve's shift of stance signaling that it will stay accommodative for longer even if US inflation exceeds its target level of 2 percent.
Aug. 31, 2020
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[Future of Plastic Cards] Through human-robot collaboration, Hyundai Card seeks digital transformation
This is the second installment in a series of articles, interviews and videos assessing the future of credit cards and the challenges ahead. -- Ed. On the ninth floor of Hyundai Card’s Card Factory, where 5 million plastic credit cards are produced every year, a barista named Billie makes coffee every day. The machine learning-powered robot, trained by award-winning Korean barista Lee Jong-hoon, has his own employee identification number: 410713. While the robot brews coffee, human c
Aug. 30, 2020
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Colliers exec advises Korean investors to join debt financing for US warehouses
South Korean institutional investors may see opportunities in the US commercial real estate market as industrial properties in the country garner traction amid the resumption of sales activities, an executive at Colliers International said Thursday. While pointing out that major global blue-chip investors are increasingly tapping into top-tier warehouses in the US, Jeff Black, executive vice president of the company, said Koreans may have room to partner with them as long as they are willing to
Aug. 30, 2020
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Top 10 Kospi stocks' market cap approaches 45%
South Korea’s 10 largest stocks trading on the main bourse Kospi are seeing its combined market cap account for 45 percent of Kospi constitutents‘ total market cap as local retail investors flock to the large-caps betting on changes in the domestic industry. According to data by the Korea Exchange, the top 10 large-caps on the Kospi stock market took up 44.78 percent of Kospi’s market cap on average in August, up over 11 percentage points on-year. The figure has been on a co
Aug. 30, 2020