▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items for each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Debate over the KOSPI's bottom: The KOSPI closed on the 20th at 5,552.74, down 215.27 points, or 3.73%, erasing two days of gains in a single session. The index has fallen in eight of the 10 trading sessions since the 6th of this month, for a cumulative decline of 20.72% — a pace some describe as comparable to the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 shock, though the comparison periods differ.
■ Leveraged contrarian bets: Korean retail investors buying overseas equities purchased $267.67 million worth of a triple-leveraged exchange-traded fund tracking the Korean stock market, even after it plunged more than 40% in a week. In the domestic ETF market, individual investors bought a net 1.3547 trillion won across three double-leveraged products, showing a clear move to treat the selloff as a buying opportunity.
■ AI cash flow warning: Morgan Stanley projected that capital spending by hyperscalers and neoclouds will surge 60% next year to $1.58 trillion, while their free cash flow deficit hits a record $540 billion. Anxiety is spreading across the industry as earnings fail to keep pace with the speed at which investment is expanding.
[News of Interest to Financial Product Investors]
- Key summary: The KOSPI closed on the 20th at 5,552.74, down 3.73% from the previous session, after falling as low as 5,493.24 during the day. Doubts over chip profitability spread on credit risk at AI companies stemming from CoreWeave and on technological catch-up by Chinese memory makers, while the won-dollar exchange rate slipped below the 1,330 won range, adding concerns about exporters' fourth-quarter results. With losses mounting day after day, iM Securities put the short-term bottom at 5,100 to 5,340. Korea Investment & Securities left the downside open to around 5,150, equivalent to a forward price-to-book ratio of 1, while Hana Securities estimated a second trough at around 5,300. According to FnGuide data, reports cutting target prices between the 14th and 20th of this month totaled 210, or 4.2 times the 50 reports raising them. Investor deposits at brokerages fell to 92.0966 trillion won on the 19th, the lowest level in about nine months.
2. Money Floods Into Triple-Leveraged Korea Fund Despite 40% Plunge in a Week
- Key summary: Korean investors bought a net $267.67 million (about 350 billion won) of the U.S.-listed Direxion Daily MSCI South Korea Bull 3X ETF (KORU) between the 13th and 19th of this month. KORU returned minus 40.39% while the KOSPI plunged 14.46% last week, yet buying was heavy enough to make it the second-most purchased U.S. stock overall. Domestically, KODEX Leverage ranked first in individual net buying last week, from the 12th to the 16th, at 773.3 billion won, and net purchases of three double-leveraged products including KOSDAQ 150 and semiconductor leverage funds reached 1.3547 trillion won. Goldman Sachs analyzed five past instances in which the KOSPI plunged more than 20% over eight trading sessions and found median returns of 19%, 8% and 26% over the following two weeks, one month and three months. Still, analysts note that because these products track a multiple of daily returns, repeated sharp swings can prevent them from fully recovering losses even if the underlying index rebounds.
3. Big Tech Free Cash Flow to Hit Worst Level Next Year; AWS Also Negative for Two Years
- Key summary: Morgan Stanley said in a report on the 19th local time that capital spending by hyperscalers, which operate large-scale data centers, and neoclouds, which run AI-focused cloud services, will surge 60% next year to $1.58 trillion from $980 billion this year. By contrast, the increase in operating cash flow will come to just $240 billion, leaving a free cash flow deficit including leases of $540 billion, a record high by the firm's estimate. The analysis covered Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta, along with Oracle, SpaceX, CoreWeave and Nebius. A transcript was also released in which an Amazon Web Services executive said at an internal meeting that the AI business's free cash flow deficit could persist for two years, and Standard & Poor's warned that hyperscalers' debt may be larger than disclosed.
[Reference News for Financial Product Investors]
4. [Investment Window] For Inflation Hedging, Growth Stocks and Gold Over Crude
- Key summary: Commodity markets this year have been led higher by energy, including crude oil and natural gas, on concerns about Middle East supply disruptions — a different pattern from 2024 and 2025, when precious metals drove the rally. Crude oil prices, however, rise and fall with the business cycle and with supply and demand, while the consumer price index keeps climbing, making oil unsuitable as an inflation hedge. Gold has historically shown an inverse correlation with real interest rates, but that formula cracked after the pandemic as central banks diversified their foreign exchange reserves. When real rates touched the 2.5% line at the end of July this year and then fell back, gold prices surged about 15% in August alone, a sign the traditional relationship was being restored. The recommended approach is therefore to pair U.S. growth stocks, whose historical correlation coefficient with gold is close to zero, with gold to improve the Sharpe ratio, and to mix in some Korean government bonds and equities to reduce won-dollar exchange rate risk.
- Key summary: Doosan Fuel Cell's board approved on the 13th the issuance of 300 billion won in perpetual convertible bonds and 100 billion won in perpetual bonds with warrants. Consolidated current liabilities rose 47.1% in six months to 680.9 billion won as of the end of June and total borrowings swelled to 659.4 billion won, while cash and cash equivalents stood at just 34.8 billion won and the debt-to-equity ratio jumped to 345.9%. In September the company won an order worth 823.6 billion won for fuel cells for U.S. AI data centers, but received only 20% of the contract value as an advance payment, with the remaining 658.9 billion won to flow in at delivery through 2028, meaning working capital pressure comes first. The bonds carry terms under which the coupon rate rises to 5% and the yield to maturity to 7% from three years after issuance. NICE Investors Service expressed concern that the actual debt burden could increase over the short to medium term given the call options and the step-up in rates, after keeping the company's unsecured bond credit rating at BBB in June while changing the rating outlook to negative from stable. If all rights are exercised, common shares would increase about 14%, diluting shareholder value.
- Key summary: The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), a British think tank, argued that central banks should speak out on fiscal issues, warning that surging national debt can lead governments to press for rate cuts and bond purchases, undermining monetary policy independence. Net interest costs for the U.S. federal government in fiscal 2026 are approaching $1 trillion, roughly triple the 2020 level, and the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries rose to 5.31% this month, the highest since 2007. The International Monetary Fund projected that France's government debt-to-GDP ratio will rise to 123.6% in 2031 from 115% in 2020, and the yield on France's 10-year government bonds soared to 4.925% on the 19th, the highest in about two decades. Global accounting and consulting firm KPMG assessed that even if the U.S. Federal Reserve lowers its policy rate, long-term yields will stay elevated because of expanded Treasury supply and rising interest costs. Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun-song said during the parliamentary audit of government agencies that he would continue to voice his views on fiscal sustainability.
