Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is famous for his blunt style of speech. In his biography "The Thinking Machine," anecdotes frequently appear of his unfiltered tongue causing friction with those around him. Yet in the stock market, those unvarnished remarks become "catalysts." A single offhand comment from him can send particular stocks straight to the daily upper limit.
The recent frenzy over quantum computing themes is a case in point. As soon as Huang remarked on the 14th of this month that "quantum computing is the key to the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI)," related stocks surged. Related stocks listed on the KOSDAQ rallied one after another to the daily upper limit. Stocks that had drawn little attention just days earlier suddenly transformed into revolutionary names poised to change the world. The result fully reflects the mindset of investors who trust first whenever Huang speaks.
The optical communications stock fever that swept in a month ago is no different. The moment Huang said on the 16th of last month that optical communications are "the key to breaking the bottleneck of AI data centers," the market erupted. Stocks such as Daehan Optical Communications soared more than 150 percent in a month. In October last year, when Huang visited Korea and announced plans to "cooperate with robotics firms," a collective frenzy played out on the KOSDAQ in which any stock with the word "robot" in its name saw its price jump.
Of course, it is hard to deny that these technologies hold core value for the future. The problem is the stock market's "overreaction." Though the road to actual commercialization remains long, share prices race ahead on the "let's go" mood among investors. Stocks skyrocket the moment they receive "Huang's blessing," only to plunge once the fever passes — a classic pattern of theme stocks. While U.S. markets are no different in swinging on a single word from a Big Tech CEO, the amplitude is far greater on the KOSDAQ, where the share of retail investors is unusually high.
It feels somehow bitter that in a country that prides itself on being a technology powerhouse, investors end up hanging on the words of a foreign CEO. Yet this may also reflect a yearning for the emergence of a "K-tech leader" who can move global markets. Will the day ever come when investors around the world watch the mouth of a Korean executive, and global markets swing on a single word from him?
