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The government's framework report to the National Assembly on the 22nd lifts a confidential Westinghouse restriction on the APR-1400, but only for units built with money from the U.S. investment package, and the Saudi and Vietnam payoff is still a forecast.
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More than $20 billion of orders came in against an $11 billion target. The yields that pulled them in sit 2.20 percentage points above the BB-zone dollar average and 25 basis points above the B- average.
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The Fed's first increase since July 2023 was 25 basis points. Korea's five-year AA- corporate yields are up 110 basis points this year, and the share of new paper maturing inside three years jumped from 24.7% in August.
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The 10-year traded at 5.039% on the 15th, its highest since July 2007, after Saudi Arabia closed an alternative crude shipping route and oil passed $100. Eighty-five percent of the economists Reuters polled now expect a September Fed hike.
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Zhipu closed about $5 billion two months after raising $4 billion in a July share sale. The largest sum in the same tally is the $29.6 billion that ByteDance borrowed from roughly 30 banks at home and abroad.
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Korea's three-year treasury yield went above 4% in the same week that opposition lawmakers put Seoul's housing starts at well under 60% of their decade average. The National Assembly spent the day arguing about capital-gains deductions.
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The three-year treasury yield closed at 4.014% and WTI at $102.48, the KOSPI gave up the 7,000 level, and the money leaving Korea's safest funds landed in brokerage accounts with margin debt already at 32.36 trillion won.
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Seoul Economic Daily reports that AI startups increasingly annualize a single month because usage billed in tokens does not qualify as recurring revenue. OpenAI books net of partner shares; Anthropic books gross.
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Astra costs $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output, both up the same 2.5 times, so the only way to hold spend flat is 60 percent fewer tokens. The capability being priced is the one rated Critical.
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The subsidy is paid to the worker rather than the employer, so provincial hiring gets cheaper without any firm spending a won of its own, and what happens to posted pay over the next year will show who really collects.
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Gallup has Lee Jae-myung at 42% approval with housing named by 27% of those who disapprove, which fattens the regulatory tail on Korean property just as the Bank of Korea hikes for a second month and Seoul moves to restructure 6.3 trillion won of arrears.
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The Ministry of Employment and Labor wants routine reassignments tied to building or expanding a workplace kept out of bargaining and dispute scope, which hands chipmakers a quieter path from capex to a staffed fab. The final text is due next week.
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Won-loan delinquency hit 0.56% in June, the highest for that month since 2016. All of the deterioration sits on the corporate side, and small firms are carrying it.
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AI-led ICT and bio took about 38 percent of Korea's record 8.87 trillion won half. Unitree closed its Shanghai debut up 460 percent, at an implied 1,200 times earnings.
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Ten firms booked 10.26 trillion won of first-half net profit and hired accordingly. The same rate cycle that funds the trading desks is repricing household debt.
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The July index rose 0.13 points to 3.18%, and KB Kookmin and Woori reprice variable mortgages from the 19th. The tax change that might ease the exit is now being renegotiated.
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Haan Jugong 1 through 12 all moved toward rebuilding, leaving two or three units for sale per complex. A 76-square-meter unit printed 1.12 billion won, up 200 to 300 million in under a year.
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The five major non-life insurers booked their biggest mortgage balance increase of the year in July, a fourth straight monthly rise. The DSR perimeter stops at the bank window.
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Borrowers rolling off 2021 fixed terms at the five major banks meet variable rates of 4.09% to 5.69%, with the Bank of Korea signaling another hike. Asset managers are selling defence.
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Sidecars fired 78 times and circuit breakers 13 times through the 14th. The five largest asset managers' ETF desks are now selling cash flow instead of direction.
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Invest · August 17, 2026 · 1 publisher
Invest · August 17, 2026 · 1 publisher