KOSPI Reclaims 5,300…CoreWeave Results Ease AI Investment Concerns as Buy-Sidecar Is Triggered in KOSDAQ

The KOSPI recovered the 5,300 level intraday and extended its gains. Midway through the broadcast, it was up more than 1.8% at around 5,335, with about 490 stocks advancing. The KOSDAQ touched 700 intraday and rose more than 5% at one point, triggering a buy-sidecar.

In market flows, foreign investors’ selling in the KOSPI eased before turning into net buying. In the KOSDAQ, institutions bought shares, led by financial investment firms, insurers, investment trusts and pension funds, while foreign investors recorded net sales of shares worth around 30 billion won. Foreign investors were net buyers of KOSDAQ futures worth around 10 billion won.

Host Lee Kwang-soo said the KOSDAQ had fallen more sharply than the KOSPI and was less affected by foreign investors, creating conditions in which institutions could more easily select individual stocks to buy. However, given the KOSDAQ’s high volatility, he said institutional capital would need to continue supporting the market to prevent the move from being limited to short-term profit-taking. The won-dollar exchange rate fell by 8 won 90 jeon to 1,335 won, while Nasdaq futures were also up more than 1%.

AI cloud company CoreWeave reported third-quarter revenue of $3.7 billion, up 168% year over year and above the market estimate of $3.5 billion. Its revenue backlog also increased 138% from a year earlier. Adjusted net loss was smaller than expected, and the company raised its full-year revenue outlook from about $12 billion to $13 billion-$13.3 billion.

The company also raised the low end of its capital expenditure outlook from $35 billion to $37 billion. Annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion. Shares rose immediately after the announcement, with gains widening to 16%-17% after the earnings call.

CoreWeave said rising demand for AI infrastructure had improved the profitability of both long- and short-term contracts and that it had raised prices on new long-term contracts. It emphasized that it could reduce financing pressure by using customer prepayments and loans secured by contracts, and that future capital investment could also be funded through secured financing. The company said current demand was 10 times its available capacity and that it faced no risk of supply constraints through 2027.

The market has viewed debt, high interest rates, the durability of AI demand and political constraints on data center businesses as key risks. CoreWeave said customer prepayments and secured loans eased financing concerns, demand for data centers remained strong, and it could adjust its operating locations if the political environment changed. The panel said the company’s specific responses to market doubts, as well as its financial results, helped drive the share-price rebound.

Anthropic disclosed plans to list on Nasdaq on the 19th in an amended filing. The offering price was set at $70-$78 per share, and the number of shares to be issued was reported to exceed 800 million. Valuation estimates based on the offering ranged widely, from around $1.1 trillion to more than $1.5 trillion.

Seven companies—Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC—are expected to participate as cornerstone investors. The panel paid particular attention to TSMC’s participation. Investor involvement could provide a backstop for the listing process, but the company’s valuation was not yet final ahead of the roadshow and book-building.

Reports said Anthropic’s annualized revenue exceeded $81 billion at the end of October, up by around $10 billion from the end of September. Meanwhile, reports said OpenAI’s third-quarter revenue surged to $10 billion, supported by growth in enterprise revenue and Astra-related business. Observers said Anthropic’s high listing valuation could also affect how OpenAI is valued.

In the AI industry, investment in data centers by big tech companies and the flow of funds among cloud providers and infrastructure suppliers were discussed as key variables. The structure in which big tech investment in AI companies feeds back into demand for its own cloud services and data centers could expand the industry ecosystem. However, concerns remain that if one company in the chain falters, losses could spread to other investors and financial institutions.

The panel watched to see whether CoreWeave’s results and financing plans could ease concerns about vulnerabilities in the circular flow of AI investment. Customer prepayments and loans secured by contracts were presented as ways to reduce financing risks for infrastructure operators. Neocloud provider Nebius was also scheduled to report results after the U.S. market close that day, making it a further test of demand and financial conditions across the sector.

Rising semiconductor prices boost suppliers’ revenue and profits, but can also raise data center operators’ investment costs and constrain demand. Lee Kwang-soo proposed supplying memory semiconductors under long-term contracts and extending payment terms through installment sales. The idea was that suppliers could secure stable cash flow and prices, while big tech companies could spread their investment burden until their AI businesses began generating cash.

Exports from November 1 to 10 totaled $33.5 billion, up 111% from the same period a year earlier. Average daily exports, adjusted for working days, also rose 97%. Semiconductors accounted for about half of the export growth, and semiconductor exports during the period reached a record high.

Memory price indicators also rebounded. DRAM export prices rose 18% from the previous month, while prices for memory overall increased 11%. HBM export prices rose 18% and DRAM module prices gained 20%. NAND export prices, by contrast, fell 3.9% month over month, reflecting differences across products.

The panel noted that price increases driven by memory shortages were lifting earnings at South Korean semiconductor companies, but excessively high prices could raise data center investment costs and undermine demand. Given that high profitability was unlikely to last indefinitely, they said it was important to monitor capacity expansion, the timing of price adjustments and how quickly AI businesses could monetize their investments.

The U.S. Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% month over month in October, above the market forecast of 0.3%. Core CPI also increased 0.3% from the previous month, higher than expected. The pace of energy price increases and housing-cost growth eased somewhat, but food, transportation services, electricity and medical goods were cited as sources of pressure.

Lee Kwang-soo said that while leading components of inflation, such as energy and housing costs, were cooling, lagging components including food and transportation services were rising. Persistently high inflation was a negative, he said, but a slowdown in energy and housing costs could also signal that inflationary pressure was nearing a peak. He added that the persistence of services inflation would need to be monitored.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said a 50-basis-point hike in December could be considered if core CPI rose by 0.3% or more month over month. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan discussed the possibility of two further 25-basis-point hikes followed by a pause, while Vice Chair Michelle Bowman said core PCE inflation could approach 2% next year but emphasized that curbing inflation remained the priority. Markets viewed a December hike as nearly certain and watched to see whether the Fed would opt for 25 or 50 basis points.

The panel weighed expectations that the December hike could be the last against the risk that rates would remain high for longer than anticipated. Lee Kwang-soo said equity inflows tend to become easier around two months after the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield peaks. At a U.S. Treasury auction, yields came in higher than expected and indirect demand from overseas buyers fell to its lowest level in three years, making bond demand and the direction of yields additional factors to watch.

At least 30% of Democratic Party lawmakers representing Seoul constituencies were reported to have called for changes to the government’s real estate tax proposal to reduce the tax burden. Differences between the Blue House and the ruling party continued over the comprehensive real estate holding tax, capital gains tax and long-term holding deductions.

The government proposal aimed to distinguish between a primary residence and a non-owner-occupied home, applying different deductions. According to the explanation, the existing deduction for a single-home owner was 1.2 billion won. The government proposal would raise the deduction for an owner-occupied home to 1.4 billion won while lowering it to 900 million won for a non-owner-occupied home. But after the ruling party leadership called for the deduction to be set at 1.4 billion won for both types, the debate shifted toward eliminating the distinction based on occupancy.

Because the taxable base is calculated after deducting the exemption, a difference in the deduction does not translate one-for-one into the tax actually owed. The issue is whether to maintain the policy goal of favoring owner-occupied homes and discouraging non-owner-occupied holdings, or to prioritize easing the tax burden.

Lee Kwang-soo argued that in the United States, individual investors can sue companies and executives and hold them accountable, while securities-related class actions in South Korea are subject to excessively stringent procedures and requirements. The process of determining whether a case meets the criteria for a class action can itself pass through multiple levels of appeal, and gathering investors and satisfying the requirements for a lawsuit also takes considerable time and money.

He said it could take about six years to obtain approval to proceed with a lawsuit, and that very few class actions had reached the merits stage over several decades. Even when plaintiffs win, the damages awarded can be small relative to their losses, making meaningful relief difficult. He also cited as areas for reform a system that requires investors to find evidence themselves while companies hold the relevant records, and the absence of a U.S.-style discovery process.

Lee Kwang-soo said the possibility of lawsuits and punitive damages in the United States helps hold major companies and their executives in check. In South Korea, he argued, shareholder protections are weak because shareholders have limited rights to access important company information and few channels for exercising their rights collectively. He called for swift improvements to the class action system, including the introduction of discovery, alongside amendments to the Commercial Act.

Lee Kwang-soo criticized calls by some Democratic Party lawmakers to ease the comprehensive real estate holding tax, saying they could be motivated by the next election rather than by a desire to stabilize the housing market or protect people without homes and tenants. Reversing a tax policy for political reasons after it has been introduced, he argued, undermines the trust of people who make housing or investment decisions based on that policy. He added that lawmakers who declined to respond also had a responsibility to explain their policy positions.

He said the movement of money from real estate into equities could affect flows in the stock market. Easing the tax burden on homeowners could increase the incentive to hold on to homes, making it harder for capital to move into equities. He argued that failure to change a structure in which capital is concentrated in real estate assets would also weigh on the long-term growth of capital markets and the economy.

Lee Kwang-soo stressed that the policy direction of building a real estate market centered on owner-occupiers should be maintained. He also suggested considering the disclosure of home ownership and funding sources for property purchases so that politicians’ statements and interests could be scrutinized transparently. The point, he said, was that policy consistency and politicians’ accountability in explaining their positions matter to both the real estate market and capital markets.