IBM Plunges 25% as AI Investment Landscape Shifts

*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "AI-based customized news recommendation and summary service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items for each reader type.

1. "Misjudged Client Spending Priorities"...IBM's AI Infrastructure Didn't Sell Either

- Key Summary: IBM shares plunged 25.21% on the 14th (local time), wiping out $67 billion in market capitalization in a single day, which Forbes assessed as the largest drop in its 115-year history, surpassing the 'Black Monday' record (1987, 23%). The epicenter of the stock plunge was weak sales of the latest AI infrastructure product 'z17.' IBM CEO Arvind Krishna confessed, "Over a few weeks in June, we witnessed clients shifting capital expenditures to purchases of servers, storage, and memory to secure supply-constrained infrastructure," adding, "We did not anticipate the degree to which capital expenditure priorities would be rebalanced." IBM projected second-quarter preliminary revenue of $17.2 billion, below Wall Street's estimate ($17.8 billion), and its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 also fell short of the estimate ($3.01). Meanwhile, eMarketer analyst Jacob Bourne analyzed the situation, saying, "Building AI infrastructure is shifting capital investment from existing software to hardware such as memory chips," while Evercore ISI's Kirk Materne assessed that it was somewhat of a stretch to interpret IBM's weak earnings as a sign of broad weakness across the software industry.

2. ASML Revenue at 16 Trillion Won...Another 'Surprise Earnings' in Q2

- Key Summary: The Netherlands' ASML recorded second-quarter revenue of 9.326 billion euros (about 16 trillion won), far exceeding market research firm LSEG's forecast (8.8 billion euros). Second-quarter net profit rose 5.8% from the previous quarter to 2.918 billion euros (about 5 trillion won), surpassing the market forecast (2.62 billion euros), and sales of new lithography equipment also increased 28.4% to 86 units from the previous quarter (67 units). ASML presented third-quarter guidance (earnings outlook) of 11 billion-12 billion euros in revenue, and sharply raised its annual revenue outlook for this year to 43 billion-45 billion euros (about 73 trillion-77 trillion won) from the outlook at the time of its first-quarter announcement (36 billion-40 billion euros). It also officially confirmed commercialization in an actual mass production environment, revealing that Intel is mass-producing some 'Intel Core Ultra Series 3' processors based on Intel 18A using 'High NA EUV,' with the equipment reportedly priced at more than 350 million euros (about 600 billion won), double the level of previous equipment.

3. Dollar Lending 'Reverse Premium' Widens..."Won Could Plunge When hynix ADR Inflows Surge"

- Key Summary: The premium (spread) added when borrowing dollars in the foreign exchange funding market fell to -0.3 percentage points on a three-month basis, showing a negative level far below the recent five-year average (0.34 percentage points). Amid a large current account surplus, as companies stockpile dollars earned from exports rather than converting them to won, dollar deposit balances at five banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NH Nonghyup — soared to $65.226 billion, up 16.9% from the end of March this year, while foreign bond investment funds also saw a net inflow of $7.88 billion following inclusion in the World Government Bond Index (WGBI), contributing to expanded dollar supply. SK hynix (000660.KS) plans to convert the 40 trillion won raised through its American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing into won for domestic investment, and Hanwha Ocean (042660.KS) also sold $2 billion worth of forward contracts on the 10th, with dollar-selling moves centered on large corporations becoming visible. Korea Investment & Securities researcher Moon Da-un stressed, "If dollar supply-and-demand adjustments become visible, centered on major large corporations, the gap between the foreign exchange funding market and the spot market will narrow, and we may need to prepare for sharp undershooting (currency decline)." In fact, in the Seoul foreign exchange market that day, the won-dollar exchange rate closed at 1,484.7 won, down 8.3 won from the previous day, the lowest level in about two months since May 11.

4. On 'hynix ADR and U.S. CPI Tailwinds,' All Top 32 by Market Cap Rise

- Key Summary: On the 15th, the KOSPI closed at 7284.41, up 427.58 points (6.24%) from the previous trading day, reclaiming the 7200 mark for the first time in three trading days. SK hynix's American Depositary Receipt (ADR) surged 27% the previous night, and combined with a slowdown in the U.S. June consumer price index (CPI) growth rate followed by ASML's surprise earnings, semiconductor investment sentiment revived, with foreigners net-buying 2.3308 trillion won to continue their 'buying spree' for a second consecutive trading day. All top 32 stocks by market capitalization rose, led by Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) (up 6.27%) and SK hynix (up 8.83%), while British investment bank Barclays presented a target price of $330 for SK hynix's ADR, assessing upside potential of about double the current price. Analysts say that the second-quarter earnings announcements of U.S. Big Tech companies this month — Alphabet (22nd), Microsoft, Meta Platforms (29th), and Amazon (30th) — and whether they will expand AI infrastructure investment will become key variables for the domestic stock market going forward.

5. Export Boom Overshadowed by Domestic Slump...China's Q2 Growth at Lowest in Three Years

- Key Summary: According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, second-quarter GDP growth was 4.3% year-on-year, falling below all market forecasts from Reuters, Bloomberg (4.5%), and Nihon Keizai Shimbun (4.6%), the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2022 (2.9%) and also below the lower end of the growth target (4.5-5.0%) presented by the Chinese government for this year. Following a 5.7% year-on-year decline in fixed asset investment in June, real estate development investment fell 18.0%, marking the largest decline since 1992, while Li Daokui, director of Tsinghua University's Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking, estimated that the broad unemployment rate — including people excluded from statistics after giving up job searches — reached 10.2%, double the officially announced figure. On the other hand, exports last month increased 27.0% year-on-year, setting a record high on a monthly basis, with lithium battery and electric vehicle exports each