Finance

South Korean stocks rocked after martial law declared

Published

6 months ago

December 3, 2024

Police stand guard in front of the main gate of the National Assembly in Seoul on December 3, 2024, after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law. South Korea President Yoon on December 3 declared emergency martial law, saying the step was necessary to protect the country from “communist forces” amid parliamentary wrangling over a budget bill.

Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images

South Korean stocks dropped in the U.S. on Tuesday after President Yoon Suk Yeol invoked emergency powers and declared martial law, raising fear of instability in the world’s 13th largest economy.

The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, which tracks more than 90 large and mid-sized companies in South Korea, tumbled 6% to hit a 52-week low.

Korea Electric Power’s American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) dropped 5%, and Korean e-commerce giant Coupang shed 6%. KT Corporation, formerly Korea Telecom, saw shares fall 3%. Posco, a South Korean steel manufacturer, declined more than 6%.

The president accused opposition parties of sympathizing with North Korea and controlling parliament. Yoon did not specify how martial law — a temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency — would affect governance and democracy in the country.

The Korea Exchange announced it would hold an emergency meeting “to prepare response measures” and later decide whether the market would open on Wednesday, according to local media reports.

The U.S. dollar jumped 1.9% against the South Korean won Tuesday.

— CNBC’s Hakyung Kim contributed reporting.

Finance

Robinhood shares drop after the online brokerage fails to get the nod to join the S&P 500

Published

20 minutes ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

People wait in line for T-shirts at a pop-up kiosk for the online brokerage Robinhood along Wall Street after the company went public with an initial public offering earlier in the day on July 29, 2021 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Robinhood shares sold off on Monday as the online brokerage was snubbed in the latest quarterly rebalance of the S&P 500 Index after months of speculation that it could earn a coveted spot in the benchmark.

Shares of Robinhood dropped nearly 5% in premarket trading. The stock has rallied 3.3% Friday to bring last week’s gain to over 13% before the S&P Dow Jones Indices said after the bell that the S&P 500 would remain unchanged.

Just last week, Bank of America called Robinhood a top candidate to join the S&P 500 during the big reshuffling in June. The S&P 500 rebalance, which typically comes on the third Friday of the last month in a quarter, is usually an impactful event as it can spark billions of dollars of trading and spur passive funds to snap up its shares. Companies being added to the index can generally expect funds like that to buy huge amounts of their shares in the coming weeks.

Crypto exchange Coinbase was the latest beneficiary of such an inclusion. The stock skyrocketed 24% in the next trading session following the announcement last month.

Still, Robinhood has had a major comeback this year so far with shares doubling in price. The online brokerage’s shares hit a fresh record high last week amid a rebound in both stocks and crypto. The company had fallen out of favor after the GameStop trading mania of 2021 fizzled and the collapse of FTX triggered a sell-off in digital assets.

Finance

UK’s FCA teams up with Nvidia to let banks experiment with AI

Published

5 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”

Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.

The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.

“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”

The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.

Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.

Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.

Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.

He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.