Anxious Eyes on Wall Street Plunge: Will Monday's KOSPI Hold Up?

[Anchor]

With yesterday's (the 31st) plunge on the Nasdaq compounding these concerns, many people are likely worried about how our stock market will fare tomorrow. Analysts predict that the market will remain volatile for the time being, reacting immediately to trends in the United States.

Reporter Lee Seong-hoon has the analysis.

[Reporter]

What the market is currently focusing on is whether major tech companies will be able to reap actual profits down the road, commensurate with the massive amounts of money they are pouring into artificial intelligence development.

Alphabet and Amazon are left with virtually no free cash flow after funding investments with their earnings, while Meta has even seen its credit rating outlook downgraded to negative.

OpenAI, the operator of ChatGPT, initially set a target of 30 billion dollars in fundraising, but has only secured 11 billion dollars in investment commitments so far.

Amid forecasts that only companies securing overwhelming technology will survive in the market, a fierce, limitless competition is underway. Doubts over how long such investments can be sustained and what will happen to companies lagging behind in the race are periodically shaking the market.

With half of the KOSPI index concentrated in just two companies—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—our stock market is being swept up even more severely each time.

The key question for tomorrow's market is to what extent the impact of the Nasdaq index tumbling nearly 3% on the New York stock market late last week will be reflected.

[Noh Dong-kil / Researcher, Shinhan Securities: Considering the drop in the U.S. market, it seems likely to open weak. However, given that the South Korean market already priced in some of its own decline on Friday, it is unlikely to fully absorb all the impact from the U.S.]

At the same time, because AI competition and investment show no signs of abruptly tapering off, experts diagnose that the situation needs to be viewed with a long-term perspective.

[Park Sang-hyun / Researcher, iM Securities: South Korea's semiconductor exports are continuing to maintain a record-breaking upward trend, and the possibility of the AI investment craze turning into the kind of bubble or bursting of overheating that some people talk about is actually not very high.]

In the U.S., the midterm elections and earnings announcements from companies such as Apple and AMD are scheduled for early in the week, and our stock market is expected to be influenced once again depending on these outcomes.

(Video Editing: Lim Yeojin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.