Nvidia Unveils Record $150 Billion Buyback, Topping Apple

* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and delivers six news items tailored to each reader type.

1. [Investment Window] Why Nvidia Is Launching Its Largest-Ever Share Buyback

- Key summary: Nvidia raised its share repurchase authorization by $150 billion, proposing the largest program on record and surpassing the $110 billion Apple set in 2024. The remaining authorization stands at $235 billion, to be executed through January 2028, and comes just four months after an $80 billion increase. The boost to earnings per share from the buyback amounts to only 2% to 3%. Still, the move is expected to lift return on equity, which has been declining as cash piles up, from 71% to around 80%. Meanwhile, accounts receivable from chips delivered to customers but not yet collected swelled from $38.5 billion to $63.1 billion in six months, suggesting the pace at which receivables convert into cash will determine the pace of returns.

2. Yields and Stocks Rise Together as AI Rewrites the Investment Playbook

- Key summary: The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to as high as 5.347% in intraday trading on the 5th, its highest level since 2002. The Nasdaq set a record high the same day at 27,477.31. Rising Treasury yields normally weigh on technology stocks by lowering the present value of future profits; when yields topped 5% in October 2023, the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Nasdaq both corrected more than 10%, and the KOSPI tumbled 5.7%. This time, analysts say expectations of expanding AI investment and rising profits offset the burden of higher rates. Lee Jin-woo, head of the research center at Meritz Securities, said the recent rise in yields contains growth as a variable, and that as long as the export cycle holds, yields and stock prices in Korea should also be seen as moving together.

3. [Dawn] The Manufacturing Power America Let Slip

- Key summary: The starting point for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, essential equipment for advanced semiconductor processes, was a U.S. consortium formed in 1997 by Intel, AMD, Motorola and national laboratories under the U.S. Department of Energy. ASML, which had mass-production capability, joined in 1999 with Intel's backing, and the landscape flipped in 2001 when it also acquired Silicon Valley Group (SVG), the holder of core optical technology. While Intel underestimated immersion technology, ASML became the first in the industry to supply immersion lithography equipment to TSMC in December 2003 and subsequently emerged as a dominant supplier. The Center for Technology and Statecraft (CTS), a think tank founded by former U.S. administration officials, estimated in a report in September this year that China had brought in roughly 343 of ASML's immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) machines.

4. "52-Hour Workweek Slows Productivity": Changyong Rhee Criticizes Rigid Rules

- Key summary: Changyong Rhee, former governor of the Bank of Korea, argued for easing working-hour regulations, saying the 52-hour weekly cap is dragging down productivity. According to a report Rhee co-released with Oh Sam-il, head of the employment research team at the central bank's Economic Research Institute, the trend slope of productivity per worker fell from 0.44 to 0.30 after the 52-hour cap took effect, and companies with a performance-pay share one percentage point higher showed a four-year cumulative increase in value added per worker that was 2.5 percentage points lower. For workers in the bottom 20% by income, overtime hours and overtime pay each fell 16%, cutting total pay by 1.3%, while no significant decline in total pay appeared among high earners. Rhee pointed to the current approach of applying the same rules to white-collar and blue-collar workers. He also expressed a negative view on discussions of a 4.5-day workweek.

5. "Burn Preferred and Common Shares Together": Life Asset Management Makes Counterproposal to Samsung Electronics (005930.KS)

- Key summary: Activist fund Life Asset Management said it would warmly welcome it if Samsung Electronics were to buy back and cancel common shares and preferred shares at the same time. The fund had called for a buyback and cancellation centered on preferred shares in a shareholder letter on the 14th of last month, but is seen as pushing ahead directly after Samsung Electronics balked internally, citing reverse discrimination against common shareholders. Financial affiliates such as Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance may hold a combined stake of no more than 10% in Samsung Electronics under the Act on the Structural Improvement of the Financial Industry, meaning a large-scale cancellation of common shares would force them to sell off the excess holdings. Samsung Electronics' 15 trillion won share buyback program is close to being fully used. With remaining year-end settlement resources reaching 55 trillion to 75 trillion won, market attention is focused on an additional return decision by the board at the end of October.

6. "Patent Infringement Followed by Rampant Technology Theft: They Dig Into Suppliers and Bring Down the Whole Dam"

- Key summary: According to National Police Agency data, 49 cases of semiconductor technology leakage were detected from 2022 through the end of July this year, and 19 of them, or 38.8%, were attempts to take technology abroad. Shin Sang-gon, president of the Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency, said the methods are growing ever more sophisticated, including poaching personnel, hostile mergers and acquisitions, and technology theft through second- and third-tier suppliers. Rather than large companies with established security systems, the targets are mid-sized and small companies that lack security budgets and staff and fail to meet the requirement that trade secrets be managed as confidential, the agency explained. The agency runs free consulting for small businesses and plans to unveil a pilot service late this year in which artificial intelligence automatically classifies the confidentiality grade of trade secret documents.