Kospi Slides More Than 2% on Disappointment Over Samsung Electronics' Shareholder Returns, While Kosdaq Rallies Alone

In Monday, August 24 trading, the Kospi index fell more than 2%, trading around 6,729 points. The Kosdaq, by contrast, rose nearly 2%, continuing its positive momentum around 817 points. On the flow-of-funds side, foreign investors net sold more than 2.1 trillion won on the Kospi while net buying about 120 billion won on the Kosdaq; institutions also offloaded Kospi shares while net buying roughly 50 billion won on the Kosdaq, reflecting fund flows favorable to the Kosdaq.

In currency markets, the dollar index fell to 98, and the won-dollar exchange rate also declined to around the 1,380 won level. The direct cause of the day's decline was identified as disappointment that Samsung Electronics' shareholder return plan, announced the previous Friday, fell short of market expectations.

This week is packed with major events. On August 25 U.S. time, Treasury Secretary Bessent is scheduled to comment on Iran's economy, and on Tuesday, Korea's August consumer confidence index and the final reading of the U.S. Conference Board consumer confidence index will be released. Wednesday brings the U.S. June PCE inflation data and Hyundai Motor's CEO Investor Day.

On Thursday, the Bank of Korea's Monetary Policy Committee will meet, with the market split evenly between expectations of a rate hike and a hold. Nvidia's earnings release is scheduled the same night (around 6 a.m. Korea time on the 27th), drawing intense market attention given the recent memory price hike issue. The Jackson Hole meeting begins Thursday U.S. time, with Fed Chair Powell's keynote address scheduled for 11 p.m. Friday Korea time. U.S. jobless claims data this week was also flagged as a metric worth watching.

Samsung Electronics announced its shareholder return plan for the next three years last Friday. The remaining return funds through 2026, set at 50% of total three-year free cash flow, are estimated at roughly 90 to 110 trillion won after subtracting the 29.3 trillion won already used. In the third quarter, the company will pay dividends of roughly 30 trillion won, with the specific amount and record date to be decided at an October board meeting, while the remaining 60 to 80 trillion won — including the ratio of dividends to share buybacks and cancellations — will be finalized at a board meeting in late January next year. On this announcement, the stock turned lower in after-hours trading and fell more than 8% in regular trading that day.

The core of the disappointment was summarized as the fact that the company deferred concrete decisions rather than finalizing a method, and that there was no clear commitment to share cancellation, the method most directly linked to boosting the stock price. Compared with SK Hynix, which has pledged to return more than 50% of free cash flow and continues to buy back shares, the difference highlighted was that while Samsung Electronics' total return amount is overwhelmingly larger, there is significant uncertainty over the timing and method of execution.

Governance issues were cited as the reason behind this cautious stance. Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance together hold about 10% of Samsung Electronics shares, and cancelling treasury shares would reduce the total number of shares outstanding, automatically raising these two companies' stake. Because financial-industrial separation regulations cap the stake at a certain level, each additional cancellation would require paring down that stake, meaning Samsung has little choice but to either supply funds to another affiliate to acquire the stake or push for easing of the financial-industrial separation rules. Indeed, a scenario in which Samsung C&T builds up cash through dividends and then acquires the Samsung Electronics stake that Samsung Life offers via block deal was widely discussed as likely, with the view also raised from the group's perspective that continued dividend payouts pressuring the stock price lower could actually allow the stake to be acquired at a cheaper price.

That said, some pushed back that the disappointment is excessive when the scale of the return plan is viewed calmly. Some brokerage estimates suggest that after this three-year return policy concludes, cumulative operating profit could grow to roughly 600 trillion won by 2027 and beyond, implying capacity to execute around 70 trillion won per quarter combining dividends and buybacks — a figure comparable to Samsung Biologics' entire market capitalization (about 72 trillion won). It was also noted that a falling share price actually raises the dividend yield, with the key question going forward being how the market re-evaluates this return plan from a longer-term perspective.

Samsung SDI disclosed that it will sell its stake in Samsung Display via a share buyback method, securing more than 4 trillion won in cash. The proceeds will be used to build battery production sites in North America and to invest in new battery lineups such as solid-state and LFP batteries. On this news, Samsung SDI rose about 7%, and battery supply-chain names including Ecopro BM (up about 8%), Ecopro (up about 5%), and L&F (up about 14%) also surged together, bringing a rare wave of optimism across the secondary battery sector.

The market took the fact that the company secured funds through a stake sale alone, without a rights offering or corporate bond issuance, and its stated plan to use the proceeds for expanded investment rather than debt repayment, as a signal of an aggressive strategic shift. However, alongside the positive analysis that a growing share of ESS (energy storage system) revenue is offsetting losses in the existing EV battery business faster than expected, it was also noted that views on the recovery of the EV market itself remain mixed. Mirae Asset Securities analyst Kim Chul-jung projected the company would begin taking market share from Chinese and Korean rivals in the North American, ESS, and European EV markets, setting a target price of 1 million won, the highest on the Street. Samsung SDI shares traded around the 512,000 won level that day.

A report that Dunamu met with the chairman of the U.S. SEC and has completed converting its financial statements to U.S. accounting standards fueled speculation of a Nasdaq listing push. Dunamu has been pursuing a comprehensive share swap with Naver Financial since last September, with Dunamu valued at 15 trillion won and Naver Financial at 5 trillion won, structured so that each Dunamu share converts into 2.54 Naver Financial shares. The swap date, originally set for June, was pushed back to December 31 due to delays in regulatory review. If this structure is completed, it would create a vertical governance chain of Naver–Naver Financial–Dunamu, but concerns were also raised that Naver's substantive control could weaken as Dunamu shareholders become major shareholders of Naver Financial.

Amid tightening regulation on domestic dual listings, the scenario most widely discussed is that Dunamu alone, as the final piece, would list in the U.S. However, given the many variables still to be resolved — meeting U.S. listing requirements, procedural details such as the ADR method, completion of the comprehensive share swap process, and the exercise ratio of appraisal rights — the scenario remains complex. Naver traded flat that day, around the 222,000 won level.

On the same day, Kakao announced a spin-off dividing the company into Kakao X (KakaoBank, KakaoPay, Kakao Entertainment, Kakao Mobility, etc.) and Kakao AI (KakaoTalk, Maps, advertising, commerce, etc.), with the split date set for January 1, 2027. Kakao has already carried out five spin-offs since 2017 — KakaoPay, Kakao Mobility, Kakao Commerce, Kakao Enterprise, and Kakao Healthcare — so the market's reaction to this announcement showed fatigue with the repeated spin-offs rather than any fresh enthusiasm. Analysts also noted that views remain reserved, as Kakao X could face an even steeper holding-company discount, while Kakao AI has so far presented only a direction without concrete results.

Hanmi Pharmaceutical shares hit the daily upper price limit after the company disclosed a licensing deal for its next-generation obesity drug candidate — which induces weight loss while simultaneously increasing muscle mass — with global pharmaceutical company Genentech (a Roche subsidiary). The total contract is valued at $2.3 billion (more than 3 trillion won), with an upfront payment of $190 million (about 260 billion won) and clinical, regulatory, and commercialization milestones worth about 2.9 trillion won. The company will also receive separate royalties after commercialization. The candidate is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials in the United States.

It was also noted that Hanmi Pharmaceutical signed a similar licensing deal in the same drug class back in June, with an upfront payment of 112.9 billion won and milestones worth 1.7 trillion won, but the stock barely reacted at the time. This time, the stock hit its upper limit even amid subdued investor sentiment from the decline in large-cap semiconductor names such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which some interpreted as a sign that fair valuations are beginning to return to the long-neglected Kosdaq and biotech sectors.

According to a Bloomberg report, manufacturers supplying servers to major data center operators such as Microsoft, Google, and Oracle have notified clients that Nvidia AI server prices will rise about 15% starting early next year. This applies to both the currently sold Grace Blackwell and the next-generation Vera Rubin, with the price hike attributed to a memory shortage. This was interpreted both positively, as strengthening the pricing power of memory makers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and as a concern over rising costs for building AI data centers, producing mixed effects on related stocks that day.

This development was interpreted as a signal that the balance of power is shifting — unlike in the past, when Nvidia dictated volume, price, and delivery from a position of strength, this time it accepted memory makers' pricing demands as they were. It was also noted that with Nvidia's gross margin at 75%, the company responded to rising costs by passing them on to customers rather than by shrinking its margin. However, some opinion suggested that given the rise of competitors such as AMD, it remains to be seen whether this kind of cost pass-through can continue.

One notable point is that HBM prices have risen relatively less than general-purpose DRAM prices so far. Because increasing HBM production requires cutting general-purpose DRAM production capacity, and the general-purpose DRAM market has been sluggish, this was interpreted as memory makers now beginning to raise HBM prices in earnest. Indeed, at the Hot Chips 2026 conference held in the U.S., both SK Hynix and Micron reportedly emphasized that HBM holds an advantage over general-purpose and GDDR series products in terms of space efficiency and power efficiency. This was assessed as a trend supporting the possibility of improved profitability for memory makers going forward.

That day, Samsung Electronics closed down around 8%, while SK Hynix, which had risen early in the session, turned lower to close down about 2.8%. In Japan, filings showing SoftBank plans to issue up to 1 trillion yen in corporate bonds sent AI-related stocks lower in tandem, including SoftBank (down about 4%) and Kioxia (down about 3%), reflecting heightened caution about the semiconductor industry spreading both domestically and abroad.

Amid the absence of a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, observers noted that the CLARITY Act, which would establish basic rules, has been discussed since the start of the administration yet remains stalled without passage. Behind the renewed attention to this bill lies the U.S. Treasury's expanded long-term bond buyback policy, according to the analysis. As bonds retired through buybacks are replaced with new issuance, short-term Treasury issuance increases, and stablecoins have been identified as the buyer needed to absorb this growing supply of short-term paper.

The basic structure of a stablecoin was explained as one in which depositing $1 yields one coin, with its value kept permanently pegged. To build trust, issuers disclose their holdings and generally invest in safe assets such as U.S. Treasuries. Because a larger stablecoin market generates new buying demand for Treasuries, the interpretation offered was that fostering the stablecoin market has become an industrially important lever for the U.S., which needs buyers for its government debt. However, disputes over regulatory jurisdiction (turf battles among similar bodies such as financial regulators, supervisory authorities, and securities regulators) have kept related legislation stalled for more than a year, and it was noted that the CLARITY Act must pass first before stablecoin-related bills such as the GENIUS Act can advance.

This trend was interpreted as an attempt to resolve the problem of insufficient buyers in the U.S. Treasury market, which has pushed prices down and yields up. The outlook presented was that policy could move in a direction of finding new buyers for Treasuries through stablecoins while effectively pressuring financial institutions to expand their Treasury holdings as well. It was further noted that tariff policy was likewise driven by the same underlying goal of lowering U.S. government debt and interest rates, but with insufficient effect, and that the approach is now expanding toward directly asking others to buy Treasuries.

This discussion extended to the idea of South Korea purchasing more U.S. Treasuries. Given that Korea's ratio of U.S. Treasury holdings relative to the size of its economy is lower than in other countries, and that more than roughly 70 trillion won in corporate taxes was collected from the semiconductor sector alone in the first half of this year (comparable to last year's total corporate tax revenue), the view was raised that investing a portion of that in U.S. Treasuries could serve as a positive signal to the United States. However, concerns were also raised urging caution, citing the Trump administration's past consideration of issuing perpetual bonds with no maturity as an example of the U.S. having unilaterally changed its commitments before (such as ending gold convertibility).