Brent crude closed at $103.14 per barrel on Friday, its highest settlement since 2022, after diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire or a framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz failed to produce results. The IRGC reaffirmed its declaration that the strait was closed, and Brent surged to $114 after Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum expired without…
South Korea’s KOSPI closed at a fresh record high of 5,969.6 on Tuesday, driven by heavy institutional buying that propelled the benchmark toward the symbolic 6,000 level. Beneath the surface, however, a less sanguine indicator has caught the attention of risk-focused investors. Loan transaction balances, a key metric for monitoring potential short-selling activity, have reached…
Samsung Electronics shares surged past 180,000 won for the first time on Friday, closing at 181,200 won after the company confirmed it had begun the world’s first mass production and commercial shipment of sixth-generation HBM4 memory chips. The milestone, which Bloomberg reported sent shares up as much as 7.6% on the Nextrade exchange on Thursday,…
Japanese equities exploded higher on Monday as markets digested the scale of Prime Minister Takaichi’s election victory. The Nikkei 225 jumped past 57,000 for the first time in history before paring gains to close 3.9% higher at 56,363.94. The TOPIX posted a record high at 3,783.94, up 2.3%. The LDP’s 316 seats, the most for…
Samsung Electronics shares rose more than 5% in Seoul on Monday after multiple Korean media outlets reported that the company was set to begin official HBM4 shipments to Nvidia and AMD as early as February, having cleared final qualification tests for both customers. The news reinforced the narrative that Samsung’s semiconductor division is staging a…
Prime Minister Takaichi dissolved Japan’s lower house of parliament on Friday, formally setting the stage for a February 8 general election that will be the shortest campaign in the country’s postwar history. The Nikkei 225, which had rallied sharply in anticipation of the dissolution, experienced intraday volatility as traders took profits on the “Takaichi trade”…
SK Hynix’s announcement on Tuesday of a 19 trillion won ($12.9 billion) investment in a new advanced chip packaging facility in Cheongju generated immediate reactions across the Asian semiconductor value chain. SK Hynix shares dipped approximately 2.5% on the session, a response that reflected near-term concern about the scale of capital expenditure relative to existing…
