US-Iran Renewed Clash Pushes Oil Toward $90 as Fed Hawkish Remarks Rattle Rates, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Ride Semiconductor Tailwind

On September 1, the KOSPI repeatedly slipped and attempted to turn positive early in the session before ultimately settling around the 6,790 level, while the KOSDAQ fell more than 2% to near 818 points. Foreigners sold both KOSPI and KOSDAQ futures, offloading roughly 400 billion won in KOSPI cash equities, nearly 200 billion won in KOSDAQ, and about 600 billion won in the futures market. The won-dollar exchange rate, which had risen early in the session, gave back its gains and settled near 1,369 won, showing a stable pattern.

During the session, the KOSPI recovered to near breakeven, buoyed by strength in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics turned positive, and SK Hynix rose more than 1% as foreign investors flipped to net buying. Still, the number of advancing issues remained limited, reflecting a rotation-driven, theme-centered market, with meaningful gains concentrated in oil refining and chemicals, rate-sensitive financials and insurers, and select secondary battery names. The rate-sensitive KOSDAQ saw advancing issues at only about half the number of declining issues.

Wall Street closed lower across the board, including the Russell 2000 small-cap index, after news of the US-Iran clash sent international oil prices surging and Treasury yields to their highest level since January 2025. Lee Kwang-soo assessed that there was no single dominant catalyst driving today's market, with all participants instead focused on the Fed's September FOMC rate decision.

Apple is replacing its chief executive for the first time in 15 years. Tim Cook is regarded as a supply-chain management expert who significantly strengthened profitability during his tenure, though he also drew criticism for a lack of innovation. His successor, John Ternus, is known as a hardware architect who has been involved in hardware development for the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, and Mac, and who led the transition of the Mac's processors from Intel chips to Apple's own silicon. He has served as senior vice president of hardware engineering since 2021.

John Ternus's first official appearance as CEO is expected to be the September 9 new product launch event, where the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone Ultra — described as the first foldable iPhone — are anticipated to be unveiled. The market is watching how the new CEO, with a hardware-centric background, will respond to rising memory prices and in what direction he will expand investment in AI and Siri.

Lee Kwang-soo noted that Apple's stock has risen roughly 30-fold, from $11 when Tim Cook took office in August 2011 to around $320 today, arguing that management evaluation should ultimately come down to stock performance. He also pointed out that a structure in which the CEO changes based on performance rather than genetic succession stands in contrast to the third-generation family succession practices common among Korean conglomerates. He praised Apple for having combined trillion-won-scale share buybacks and cancellations, dividends, and continuous investment, interpreting the market's calm reaction to the leadership change as a reflection of this shareholder-return system underpinning it.

The competitive dynamic with Samsung Electronics in foldable phones was also flagged as worth watching. With Samsung weighing whether to continue its third foldable lineup, how Apple differentiates itself as a late entrant to the foldable market could reshape the competitive landscape going forward.

Total exports in August came to $98.2 billion, up 6.8% year-on-year, marking the third-highest figure on record. Semiconductor exports rose in both value and unit price from the prior month, with memory export value up more than 10% and DRAM export prices returning to an upward trend after an ambiguous move the previous month. NAND flash export prices surged 63% for a second consecutive month, showing strong upward momentum in NAND pricing.

Kwon Yeong-keu (program team) noted that the preliminary tally of $43 billion for the first 20 days of the month was ultimately finalized at $46.7 billion, indicating that the pace of price increases is accelerating further as the second half progresses. If this trend continues, September semiconductor export figures could improve further. Reflecting this, estimates suggest Samsung Electronics' third-quarter operating profit could easily exceed 110 trillion won and potentially reach as high as 120 trillion won, while SK Hynix could exceed 74 trillion won and potentially surpass 80 trillion won.

TrendForce confirmed that third-quarter PC DRAM contract prices rose 18-23% from the previous quarter, 15-20 percentage points higher than its July forecast. Major investment banks including Goldman Sachs have also raised the possibility of further DRAM price increases, with market consensus estimates now at 114.9 trillion won in operating profit for Samsung Electronics and 78.7 trillion won for SK Hynix. The month-on-month growth rate of semiconductor export value reversed from a decline last month to a 13% increase in August.

A Fed official (Warsh) delivered unexpectedly hawkish remarks, stressing that price stability is the Fed's top priority. He gave a low assessment of progress on inflation over the past two years, stated that the 2% inflation target remains firm and that the Fed will move toward it at a sufficient pace, dismissing the possibility of raising the target. He also stated that inflation does not normalize automatically, so the Fed must achieve price stability directly, that the primary policy tool is the short-term rate, and that unconventional monetary policy should be reserved for genuine crisis situations.

Lee Kwang-soo interpreted these remarks positively, contrary to conventional market wisdom. The logic is that if raising the policy rate builds credibility that inflation will actually come down, long-term rates could in fact fall. Indeed, US 2-year and 5-year yields jumped around 10bp, while 20-year and 30-year yields rose only 1-2bp, which he cited as evidence that the market is partially pricing in policy credibility at the long end. He assessed that if the September 15-16 FOMC raises rates to resolve uncertainty and lend credibility to inflation control, equity markets need not be excessively fearful.

Treasury Secretary Bessent stated at the G20 finance ministers meeting that current market conditions do not constitute a crisis, and that long-dated buybacks aim to ease volatility rather than control prices. He also argued that core inflation remains fairly contained and that rates are not typically raised during supply-shock episodes. According to a Samsung Securities summary, the US Treasury's defense of yields consists of roughly four measures: revising next year's long-term bond issuance plan language from 'increase' to 'subject to change,' joint US-Japan intervention to defend the yen, messaging that it is coordinating with the Fed, and expanding Treasury buybacks by at least $4 billion.

Lee Kwang-soo identified two root causes of the rise in Treasury yields. First, concerns over inflation stemming from the US-Iran conflict are reducing demand for Treasuries. Second, the widening fiscal deficit is increasing Treasury supply. With spending cuts difficult given the structure of aging-related expenditures such as pensions, and revenue expansion also challenging, he explained that Bessent's answer at the G20 was not debt reduction but growth as the solution. The logic is that if the fiscal deficit cannot be reduced, growth will be used to offset it instead — suggesting the market's focus may shift going forward from debt reduction to the growth rate.

On the currency front, the yen-dollar rate remained unstable, repeatedly touching 160 yen from around 159.8. As concerns grew that Japan might sell US Treasuries to secure dollar liquidity in defense of the yen, the United States explicitly declared coordination with Japan, agreeing to support yen defense in exchange for restraint on Treasury sales.

US Central Command announced it had preemptively struck an Iranian unit laying naval mines. President Trump posted forceful remarks on Truth Social, branding Iran a failed state, citing inflation near 300%, accusing it of suppressing protesters, and stating it should be tried for war crimes. He also posted an AI-generated video depicting a potential strike on Iran, and the market took this as a sign that military tensions would not ease easily. As a result, WTI crude surged past $85 intraday, briefly nearing $90, and currently trades around $86.8.

Iran had appeared to exercise military restraint following last month's peace agreement, but this time the United States struck first, and Iran signaled retaliation against US bases in locations such as Jordan while showing signs of resuming mine-laying. Lee Kwang-soo explained that Iran views Trump's midterm election timeline as a point of leverage, calculating it can hold out simply by controlling the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States, conversely, believes time is not on its side — a structural dynamic that makes negotiation difficult.

Treasury yields also jumped in tandem, with the US 10-year rising to 4.778%, the 2-year to 4.354%, and the 30-year to 5.27%. President Trump announced a large-scale oil deal with Venezuela aimed at lowering oil prices, involving the acquisition of a 20-30% stake in Venezuela's state oil company and securing control over roughly half of the country's crude export volume for the next 100 years. However, Venezuelan crude is heavy oil that is difficult to refine, requiring time and investment to convert existing refining facilities, and analysts noted that actual production increases would take at least eight years to materialize, leaving the market skeptical of any immediate stabilizing effect on oil prices.

The US Department of Defense signed seven-year long-term contracts with General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin to expand production and accelerate delivery of THAAD and Patriot interceptor missiles. Lee Kwang-soo noted that given the exposed shortage of weapons inventory, a prolonged standoff accompanied by economic pressure appears more likely than an escalation into full-scale war.

Announcement of the detailed KOSDAQ tiering system has been delayed once more amid pushback from the venture capital industry. Regulators had originally planned to unveil the final restructuring direction at the event marking KOSDAQ's 30th anniversary and signaled implementation next year, before pushing the detailed announcement back to September-October following an August public hearing. However, even that public hearing has yet to take place, making a September-October announcement unlikely and raising concerns that next year's implementation itself has become uncertain.

The venture capital industry has pushed back, arguing that classifying companies into tiers based solely on financial performance metrics such as market capitalization, revenue, and operating profit would relegate biotech, AI, and other companies with long R&D cycles to lower tiers, stigmatizing them. The argument is that it is unfair to brand a company as substandard simply because it has not yet turned a profit.

Park Si-dong noted that letting policy drift and stall is itself the worst outcome. He pointed out that the tiering system, which divides KOSDAQ into three tiers — Premium, Standard, and Management — is structurally bound to draw opposition both from companies that fail to reach the top tier and from the venture capital firms that invested in them. He noted that the original system Japan introduced was designed to encourage companies to change, but the Korean-style tiering system has failed to capture that intent and merely stigmatizes companies through classification, stressing the need to redesign the system to actually drive change.

Lee Kwang-soo stressed that what matters in investing is process, not outcome. Returns, as an outcome, lie outside an investor's control, and even the books of masters like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch ultimately focus on explaining the process that produced good outcomes. To achieve good results, one must focus on the controllable elements of a good process, and he offered 'embracing contradiction' as the core principle underpinning that process.

The first contradiction is holding conviction and doubt simultaneously. Without conviction, one cannot buy; without doubt, one cannot sell — so a good investor must maintain a balance of believing in oneself while also doubting oneself. The second contradiction is not avoiding risk while still cutting losses, meaning one must actively take on risk while simultaneously maintaining a disciplined approach to managing losses when they occur.

The third contradiction is paying attention to both the expected and the unexpected at once. He explained that gaining diverse perspectives requires attention not only to stocks that rise along with the market, but also to stocks that rise alone even as the market falls. As a real example, he cited stocks that rallied sharply (such as Kumho Electric, which surged about 436%) even as the KOSPI plunged from the 9,100 level between late June and July, explaining that this is not a recommendation to invest in such stocks, but that the habit of analyzing why they moved against the market is itself a valuable learning exercise.

He cited, as an example of the direction his own independent research firm aspires to, the phrase 'investing can narrow the wealth gap and reduce social inequality,' noting that seemingly contradictory propositions can create change that was not previously possible. He also shared that he had given a lecture on real estate reform at the National Assembly that morning, closing his remarks with the reflection that rather than fixating on outcomes, he intends to stay faithful to the process of doing what he can.