The Financial Supervisory Service announced on July 28 that it is considering using financial companies’ foreign currency bonds for emergency U.S. dollar procurement. According to experts, this is to prevent foreign capital outflow after the U.S. interest rate change on July 27.According to the orga
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. She can be reached at shinay.park@kbfg.com. -- Ed. Maintain HOLD; Revise up TP by 13% to KRW850,000 We maintain HOLD on LG H&H but raise our target price by 13% to KRW850,000 to reflect upward revisions to 2022E/2023E/2024E OP or 4%-7%. DFS revenue has seen
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced on July 27 that it is investigating abnormal foreign exchange transactions in the domestic banking sector and the scale of the transactions amounts to 7 trillion won or so, including approximately 4 trillion won at Shinhan and Woori Banks.“Most of th
The Financial Supervisory Service, the Korea Customs Service, the prosecution and the police are looking into abnormal foreign exchange transactions at major banks.Their investigations are currently underway at Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank and the on-site investigations are targeting remittances to J
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo denied the necessity of Korea-U.S. currency swap resumption at the interpellation on July 26.“The primary purposes of the currency swap agreement do not include domestic forex market stabilization and the current situation is not a foreign exchange crisis in that the U.S.
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at sw.kang@nhqv.com. -- Ed. At the upcoming July meeting, the Fed will likely raise the FF rate by 75bp and signal for at least a 50bp hike in September, when the QT threshold will also be doubled. Last week, the ECB enacted a
The stock price of Vidente has soared as the news broke out that FTX, a U.S. crypto trading platform, is in acquisition talks with Bithumb, the No. 1 digital asset trading platform in Korea.Vidente, which is listed on Kosdaq, closed at 11,900 won on July 25, up 29.77 percent from the previous tradin
The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on July 21 that foreigners’ interest income and capital gains derived from investment in government and monetary stabilization bonds would become tax-free and the introduction of financial investment income tax and cryptocurrency taxation would be postpo
Samsung Electronics’ 3-nm chip launching ceremony is scheduled for July 25. The company started the mass production of the most advanced semiconductor product in the world on June 30. The first batch of the product considerably improved in power consumption, performance and area will be supplied to
The Korea Securities Depository announced on July 18 that foreign currency securities in custody and foreign currency securities settlement totaled US$83.53 billion and US$207.96 billion in the first half of this year, respectively. The respective figures fell 17 percent and 9.4 percent compared to
The Financial Supervisory Service recently investigated 1.3 trillion won and 800 billion won foreign exchange transactions at Shinhan and Woori Banks, respectively. According to the agency, the abnormal transactions were related to arbitrage cryptocurrency trading, and it sent the cases to the prose
The South Korean government is considering applying non-taxation to foreigners’ investment in the South Korean bond market. Although the government is mentioning global standards as its reason, this implies that the depreciation of the won and inflation are already beyond a tolerable level.Deputy Pr
Bank of Korea Governor Lee Chang-yong remarked on July 13 that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is scheduled to stay in South Korea on July 19 and 20 and various foreign exchange market stabilization measures may be discussed during her meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Choo Kyung-ho.“Although
Foreign investors are continuing to sell South Korean stocks. Their net selling in KOSPI amounted to more than 15.24 trillion won from Jan. 3 to July 6, when KOSPI dipped below 2,300 points for the first time in 20 months. For reference, the amount was 24.5652 trillion won in 2021 as a whole.From Ja
More and more experts are calling for the government to conclude currency swap agreements with the United States and Japan, as the won-dollar exchange rate is soaring and South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves are decreasing fast. At present, South Korea is in currency swap agreement with Canada, C
The 29th South Korea-Japan Business Council meeting took place in Seoul on July 4, for the first time in three years. The meeting was attended by Federation of Korean Industries Chairman Huh Chang-soo, Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin, Samsung Electronics president Lee In-yong, Hyundai Motor Compa
LG Chem is pushing for the issuance of foreign currency bonds worth up to US$1 billion. The company reportedly plans to use the raised funds to invest in carbon dioxide emissions reduction facilities and build production processes using eco-friendly raw materials.The company has recently selected Ba
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on July 3 that South Korea’s trade deficit was US$10.3 billion in the first half of this year. It is even larger than US$9.16 billion recorded in the first half of 1997, when Asia faced a serious financial crisis. Besides, in the first half of thi
The values of the currencies of emerging Asian countries showed the steepest decline since 1997 in the second quarter, amid a rapid rise in U.S. interest rates.According to Bloomberg, the Bloomberg JP Morgan Asia Dollar Index fell 4.5 percent to 102.53 in the second quarter of this year. The index s
The authors are analysts of Shinhan Investment Corp. They can be reached at sokang@shinhan.com and kimaram@shinhan.com, respectively. -- Ed. Success of Mir M to drive full-fledged earnings growthMir M, released on 23 June, currently ranks fourth on Google Play in terms of gross sales. Daily average