▲AI PRISM* Customized Economic Briefing
*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "artificial intelligence (AI)-based customized news recommendation and summary service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items by reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ AI Fund Returns 110%: Samsung Asset Management's "Samsung U.S. AI Infrastructure Fund" has recorded a return of about 110% since its launch in June last year, with net assets swelling to 25.5 billion won. Chang Hyun-jun, head of the equity management division at Samsung Asset Management, said the AI infrastructure investment cycle would continue for at least three years, as demand for data centers, semiconductors, and power infrastructure increases faster than expected amid the spread of generative AI.
■ Global Tightening Reignites: The U.S. Federal Reserve will hold its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on June 16-17, and markets expect it to hold its current benchmark rate of 3.5-3.75 percent for a fourth consecutive time. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is expected to raise its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage point from the current 0.75 percent to 1 percent at its monetary policy meeting on June 15-16, marking the first entry into the 1 percent range in 31 years since 1995.
■ Money Move Accelerates: As investor deposits surged from 106.0325 trillion won at the end of January this year to 131.5856 trillion won at the end of May, major institutional investors including the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives, the Korea Teachers' Credit Union, and the Teachers' Pension halted new private equity fund (PEF) blind fund commitment programs one after another. As individual investor funds flow into the stock market at an accelerating pace, institutions appear to be focusing on liquidity management to respond to member deposit redemption demand.
[News of Interest to Financial Product Investors]
1. "AI Infrastructure Investment Cycle at Least 3 Years…Current Correction Is an Opportunity"
- Key Summary: Chang Hyun-jun, head of the equity management division at Samsung Asset Management, said in a Seoul Economic Daily interview on Saturday that the growth of related industries would continue for some time as the spread of generative AI converges with national-level AI investment competition. The "Samsung U.S. AI Infrastructure Fund," launched by Samsung Asset Management in June last year, is a public fund investing in three areas—computing technology, server configuration, and data centers—and is managed by adding individual stocks based on core AI exchange-traded funds (ETFs) such as KODEX U.S. Semiconductor to pursue excess returns. Since its inception, it has recorded a return of about 110%, with net assets growing to 25.5 billion won. Meanwhile, Chang forecast that the recent correction in AI-related stocks reflects a period of concern over expanded financing, but said a significant portion could be resolved through future earnings announcements.
2. "Robots Can't Be Seen as Market Leaders…AI's Sidekick Keeping Pace with Chips and Batteries"
- Key Summary: Yeom Seung-hwan, director at LS Securities (078020), presented four conditions for market-leading stocks—earnings, liquidity, storytelling, and ETF commercialization potential—at the Seoul Economic Daily Policy Leaders Academy recently, diagnosing semiconductors as the top market leader meeting all of them, while robots remain a "sidekick sector" benefiting from the AI cycle because their earnings and market capitalization fail to meet ETF commercialization requirements. He also analyzed that a bull market would continue, with the combined investment by five big tech companies (Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle) reaching 1,000 trillion won this year, and projected that the KOSPI has upside room to 10,216 when applying the 30-year average price-earnings ratio (PER) of 9.8 times. Regarding Samsung Electronics (005930) and SK hynix (000660), he said a structural change is underway in which profit margins are stabilizing like TSMC's through the expansion of three-to-five-year long-term agreements (LTAs), and said each has upside room to at least 410,000 won and 2.85 million won. He also cited Korea being reevaluated as a strategic manufacturing base during the supply chain restructuring following deglobalization as a structural backdrop for the KOSPI's strength.
3. Eyes on Kevin Warsh's "Mouth"…Japan Likely to Raise Rates by 0.25 Point
- Key Summary: As markets expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold its current benchmark rate of 3.5-3.75 percent for a fourth consecutive time at its FOMC on June 16-17, following holds in January, March, and April this year, the biggest point of interest has emerged as what message new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took office last month, will deliver at his first press conference after the rate decision. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan is expected to raise its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage point from 0.75 percent to 1 percent at its monetary policy meeting on June 15-16, considering rising prices and the prolonged weak yen, marking the first entry into the 1 percent range in 31 years since 1995. In Korea, Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun-song is expected to hold a briefing on the operation of the price stability target on June 17 and make remarks on the future rate path, while the April producer price index (PPI) jumped 2.5% from the previous month due to rising oil and raw material prices, recording the largest increase since February 1998. In addition, attention is focused on the 2026 national competitiveness rankings to be released by Switzerland's International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on June 18.
[News for Reference to Financial Product Investors]
4. Homeowners in Regulated Zones Face 4.9 Trillion Won Guarantee Restriction on Jeonse Loans
- Key Summary: With financial authorities set to announce regulations next month restricting jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) loans for speculative non-resident single-home owners, the outstanding balance of bank jeonse loans for single-home owners totaled 13.2 trillion won (89,000 cases) as of the end of March. Of this, the jeonse loan balance of borrowers owning apartments in regulated zones—comprising all 25 districts of Seoul and 12 areas in Gyeonggi Province such as Gwacheon and Yongin—stood at 4.9 trillion won, and observers inside and outside financial authorities expect these will be the main targets of the non-resident single-home regulations. Regulatory methods under discussion include banning guarantees from public guarantee institutions such as the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG), the Korea Housing Finance Corporation (HF), and SGI Seoul Guarantee, or further lowering the current 80% guarantee ratio. Meanwhile, the regulation reflecting part of the jeonse loan principal in calculating the debt service ratio (DSR) is understood to have been excluded from review.
- Key Summary: As individual investor funds flow into the stock market at an accelerating pace, major institutional investors (LPs) are moving faster to rebalance their portfolios. The Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives has effectively decided to skip its blind fund commitment program this year, and the Korea Teachers' Credit Union and the Teachers' Pension have also settled on not proceeding with new private equity fund (PEF) commitment programs. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, investor deposits surged from 106.0325 trillion won at the end of January this year to 131.5856 trillion won at the end of May, and institutions appear to be selling off large amounts of their bond holdings to respond to member deposit redemption demand. The sharp reduction in recovery funds flowing to institutions, as the sale of PEF portfolio companies is delayed amid expectations of rate hikes, is also cited as a backdrop that sharply lowered new commitment capacity.
- Key Summary: As the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Korea Exchange (KRX) again delayed the announcement of detailed guidelines on dual-listing regulations from the originally planned early June, large unlisted companies with corporate values in the trillions of won, such as HD Hyundai (267250) Robotics, have effectively entered a standby state, unable to gauge their listing timing. The most likely alternative currently under discussion is a "3% rule" that would limit the voting rights of the largest shareholder and specially related parties to 3% when voting on subsidiary listing agendas, as is done when appointing audit committee members. Accordingly, large companies such as LS (006260), Hanwha (000880), SK, and HD Hyundai are showing moves to preemptively respond to regulatory uncertainty by buying back subsidiary stakes from financial investors (FIs) or selling stakes to private equity funds. Authorities and the exchange are in final coordination with the goal of an announcement in mid-June, but the subsequent rule revision
