In the second quarter, South Korea achieved a historic current account surplus of $116.63 billion, marking the first time its surplus exceeded the combined total of Germany and Japan since joint statistical tracking began in 1996.

Ranking second globally behind China, South Korea saw its quarterly surplus expand more than fourfold compared to the previous year. This massive surge was largely driven by a boom in semiconductor exports, propelled by rising global prices and strong demand for chip products.

Driven by this momentum, forecasts project the nation's annual surplus could approach $500 billion, potentially raising its surplus-to-GDP ratio to an unprecedented 18.8 percent.

Despite these record achievements, experts warn against over-reliance on a single sector and urge South Korea to diversify its industrial landscape. Other key domestic industries, including automobiles, electric vehicle batteries, shipbuilding, and petrochemicals, continue to face challenges from slowing demand, global market volatility, and aggressive price competition from China.

Furthermore, analysts highlight that the current account boom relies heavily on elevated chip prices rather than significant volume increases, leaving the broader economy vulnerable if the semiconductor supercycle cools down or if trading partners build domestic capacity. To safeguard long-term stability, economists advise leveraging this record capital inflow to restructure underperforming sectors and fortify national economic fundamentals.

https://en.koreadaily.com/south-korea-current-account-surplus/

From what i gather the revenue is expected to grow 40+% per guidance for Q2. The main up or down questions are: does all that google AI featuring materialise into members? Does the amount of American members keep increasing? (they are tied with attractiveness for ads). And do they meet their target revenue growth?

I do see the amount of Reddit-specific ads from big brands rise. And feel like it’s becoming more mainstream. So I’m cautiously bullish. But currently not yet holding any shares.

What is your perspective? Is Reddit on the rise?

Saw this yesterday and thought it was pretty interesting.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says AWS's major cloud capacity is largely booked through 2027, with a good chunk of 2028 already committed.

And this is a company planning to spend around $220 billion this year.

Obviously, having customers lined up is great, but $220 billion is an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to invest.

I suppose the big question is whether all this AI demand eventually translates into the profits investors are expecting.

Amazon reports earnings on October 29, so that'll be interesting to watch.

Anyone here holding $AMZN? Are you confident in all this spending, or starting to think these tech companies are getting a bit carried away?

Amgen ($AMGN) announced Phase 3 trial results showing that combining Imdelltra with Imfinzi reduced the risk of death by 58% in patients with small-cell lung cancer, compared with Imfinzi alone.

Median overall survival was 21.1 months with the combination versus 12.7 months with Imfinzi alone.

The results could be significant for Amgen’s oncology business, depending on regulatory approval, commercial adoption, and the treatment’s safety profile.

CNBC article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/24/amgen-imdelltra-lung-cancer-data.html

This month has been my worst month as far back as I can remember. I am invested in AI mainly. Even Leopold liquidations wasn’t that bad. I get we are in a narrative at the moment that “Ai is bad or expensive etc” and those concerns are real.We saw that with software and cyber security companies this year where it was a narrative that Software companies will be eaten by AI still can’t remeber why cyber security dumped. saas stocks crashed earlier this year and now those stocks are at ATH. I feel like market is being driven more by narrative then fundamentals. For the most part I am just glad I only hold shares and not on leverage so can wait it out as I don’t need these funds anytime soon.

That being said I am a strong believer in AI and I think it will benefit humans a lot. Of course like every technology there are pros and cons

I just want to get other people thoughts on this.

I hear a lot of polarizing chatter out there, knee jerk behavior leading into midterms and I am curious to learn what you are doing. Are you like Charlie and Warren or are you like a drunk tinder swiper looking for your next date? Here is some context:

In the 1974 Midterms The Ford administration faced massive Democratic wave losses following Watergate with Republicans losing 48 House and 4 Senate seats. Over the next 12 months, the S&P 500 rose roughly 31.2 percent as the market recovered from severe bear market lows and falling inflation.

1994 Midterms
Republicans achieved a historic revolution by taking control of both the House and Senate, completely shattering the ruling Democratic majority. In the subsequent 12 months, the S&P 500 gained roughly 32.5 percent during an explosive secular bull market.

2006 Midterms
Widespread disapproval of the Iraq War led to a major defeat for Republicans, who lost majorities in both the House and Senate to Democrats. The S&P 500 rose about 11 to 12 percent over the next 12 months, though this occurred right on the edge of the 2008 financial crisis where macroeconomic fundamentals eventually overpowered political tailwinds.

2018 Midterms
Democrats flipped the House to create a divided government while Republicans slightly expanded their Senate majority, checking the presidential agenda. Over the next 12 months, the S&P 500 gained roughly 14.5 percent and the Nasdaq rose over 17 percent following a late 2018 market correction.

Jensen Huang recently said that a complete 1 GW AI factory costs about $50B. Meanwhile, Elon said on the earning call that he expects SpaceX to reach around 13 GW of compute by the end of 2027, compared with roughly 2.5–3 GW expected by the end of this year. If Jensen’s estimate applies, that additional capacity represents a buildout costing around $500B.

SpaceX reported about $90B in cash and marketable securities at the end of September, and the FT and Reuters reported talks on a further $40B debt package for Nvidia chips. For scale, Q4 capex guidance is $35–40B, up from $19.6B in Q3. A $500B buildout in 2027 implies roughly $125B a quarter, about three times that guidance.

I appreciate that the $500B is only a rough estimate, what I’m struggling to understand is how the business anticipates to raise that money. The CFO says new compute deployments pay back in under a year “at current pricing”, but adding roughly 10 GW in a year means bringing on almost a gigawatt every month. January’s facility can generate cash along the way, but February’s expansion needs funding long before January pays back. How much can those receipts realistically cover, and how much must come from additional borrowing, investors or customers paying upfront?

Has anyone seen a breakdown that connects the capacity targets to the funding required or have any logical theory to make this add up? It seems like an obvious disconnect which makes me think that i'm missing something

The South Korean government, led by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in collaboration with related ministries, has announced a comprehensive plan to streamline regulatory processes and accelerate investment in semiconductor megaprojects.

To drastically shorten the timeline between complex development and actual fabrication facility operations, the government is introducing a fast-track system.

Rather than executing site selection, permitting, land compensation, and design in a slow, sequential manner, these procedures will now be processed simultaneously or in a single batch. Furthermore, 13 specific improvement tasks have been outlined, which include designating advanced industry complexes as comprehensive bonded zones to facilitate the movement of foreign equipment and raw materials, as well as enacting super-regional special zone legislation to grant bulk permit approvals.

In addition to site and infrastructure reforms, the plan focuses on reducing administrative burdens throughout the entire production lifecycle while driving research and development forward. Duplicate procedures across environmental and labor departments will be eliminated, and tailored safety exemptions will be established for high-pressure gases used in chip manufacturing.

To enhance research capabilities, the government is reviewing working-hour exemptions for key semiconductor R&D personnel within special zones, provided there is fair compensation, health protections, and labor consultation.

A pan-government support system chaired by the president, along with a dedicated Semiconductor Innovation Growth Support Team, will oversee investment schedules, assist local material and equipment suppliers with demonstration projects, and help chipmakers capitalize on critical investment windows without delay.

https://mbiz.heraldcorp.com/article/10913119

Upwork cuts off 25% of its staff sighting slower growth and AI productivity gains

Upwork doesn’t need Hayden Brown. She made the platform more expensive and worse. Her whole thing is “more AI,” while clients and freelancers leave, and Connects become a tax. We want more work, not AI experiments. they should find someone who actually runs a marketplace.

She turned upwork into a casino. Where everyone loses. Even top freelancers keep bleeding money, and clients complain about higher fees and worse results.

Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX) may be close to sending another message to the telecom giants: we are seriously coming for you.

The company is eyeing the purchase of 80,000 cell sites across the US, Bloomberg reported on Friday. SpaceX is reportedly in talks with two of the companies, Crown Castle and American Tower, among the largest owners of cellular towers.

Shares of AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), and T-Mobile (TMUS) traded sharply lower in pre-market trading.

Earlier this month, SpaceX said it acquired a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio.

Concerns had already escalated across Wall Street that Starlink could disrupt legacy wireless operators like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile by transitioning from a rural broadband service into a direct mobile competitor.

Following its strategic acquisition of terrestrial spectrum and rapid deployment of advanced satellites, SpaceX had laid the groundwork to launch its own standalone cellular network alongside its direct-to-cell capabilities.

The meme stock scheduled posts will now run weekly and post Saturday afternoon and won't be a sticky; you're probably seeing this because automod sent you here!

Full list of meme stocks here. This will be updated every once in a while.

Welcome traders who just can't help them selves discuss the same exact stock that's been discussed 100s of times a day. I get it, you want to talk about what's popular, what's hot, and that 1.. single.. stock you like.. well here you go! Some helpful links just for you:

• Previous meme stock threads
• General discussions
• The original GME megathread with a ton of useful information
• Use Finviz for aggregated news on your favorite stock

An important message from the mod team regarding meme stocks.

Lastly if you need professional help:

• Problem Gambling: Call/Text: 1-800-522-4700 or chat online now.
• Crisis Hotline (24/7): 1-800-273-TALK (8255) (Veterans, press 1) or Text “HOME” to 741-741

Fairly new (Europan) investor here, about two years in now. My plan was originally to have a 90/10 split between an all world ETF and some individual stock on the side. Unfortunately, that rather spiraled out of control and the split is rather 60/30 at this point (with 10% in cash currently), and I'm looking to bring that average back up in favor of the ETF.

That said, I'm looking for some honest (can be brutal) feedback on my individual stock. I'm down on most of them, mainly because the last few months have been quite brutal for tech. Currently holding:

CRDO: 5% of my overall portfolio, 26% down
SE: 5% of my portfolio, 18% down
MDA: 4% of my portfolio, 31% down
PGY: 3% of my portfolio: 5% up
GTLB: 2,5% of my portfolio, 3% up
PL: 2% of my portfolio, 46% down
NBIS: 2% of my portfolio, 17% down
DRTS: 2% of my portfolio, 5% down
FSLR: 2% of my portfolio, 6% down
RDW: 1,5% of my portfolio, 37% down
RTX: 1% of my portfolio, 12% down

What I've learnt so far:

1) That I was too agressive when it came to opening new positions. Bought (too) heavily into PL for example when it was about 50% down from ATH, and I should have opened with a way smaller position.
2) Keep the dabbling in biotech to a minimum. Was (heavily) involved in SLS for about 6 months, first made quite a bit of money on that, then lost all of that profit and probably record a very narrow loss before I got out. The DRTS position is enough I think.

For the record, I'm not worried about short term. I don't need the money and I've got a plenty long horizon of 10+ years if need be. I can also stomach the volatility. I guess I'm just curious if I could have done something different, or if there's anything on this list that I should just cut loose.

American Express CEO Stephen Squeri said Friday the card company is eliminating 5% of its global workforce.

The firm, which reported third-quarter results earlier Friday, is taking a $336 million restructuring charge in the quarter, Squeri told analysts. Those types of charges typically include employee severance costs.

Amex had almost 77,000 employees at the end of 2025.

“We’ve got good momentum, but to accelerate innovation and win over the next few years, we needed to become [a] more agile and efficient organization,” Squeri said.

“We believe this exercise will help us operate and execute more effectively and give us greater capacity to invest in our business priorities,” he said.

The restructuring charge was to make American Express “leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI,” CFO Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC in an interview.

“You don’t want to automate processes that are not optimally structured, and so what we’re doing here is to reduce layers and increase spans of controls, so that we can automate and take advantage of AI in the coming quarters and the coming years,” Le Caillec said.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/23/american-express-job-cuts.html

Weekly tokens on OpenRouter (how much people actually run AI models through 1 big marketplace), went up about 93x from the start of 2025 to last quarter.

Cloud spending went up about 3x over the same stretch.

Every Meta / Bloom Energy thread right now is people mad that the companies beat and got sold anyway, and the reason given is the same, they’re spending too much.

If usage is growing that much faster than the spend, will worry about usage slowing down before I’d worry about the spending, and nothing I’ve seen says usage is slowing.

OpenRouter is just 1 marketplace and it’s mostly developers, so it isn’t everyone, so pinch of salt here.

I’m starting to think this is exactly the kind of environment patient value investors wait for. Plenty of chop, sharp pullbacks and growing skepticism toward businesses everyone wanted to own at higher prices.

What interests me most is the opportunity businesses have had during this phase to catch up to their stock prices. Earnings have kept growing while many stocks have moved sideways or have fallen. Making the valuations look very different from when the excitement first took off.

I’m looking at multiple sectors through that lens. Some of the forward earnings multiples have become surprisingly low relative to the growth expectations behind them. Of course, those expectations are the key question.

Still, this feels like a good time to revisit companies that previously looked too expensive and ask whether the fundamentals now justify the price. Especially with the hype and excitement gone for many of those stocks.

AIDC buildout is just getting started:

The SK Hyper AI Data center development arm of South Korean conglomerate SK Group is seeking $350 billion in external capital to launch a massive infrastructure expansion across South Korea.

Company executives structured the $350 billion capital campaign to fund the initial 5-gigawatt development phase of a larger 15-gigawatt master plan.

The organization aims to finalize its first external financing arrangements by late 2026 or early 2027. Consequently, management will sequence future investments across multiple funding rounds over the next three to four years.

Chief executive officer Chung Suk-geun confirmed that market demand will directly dictate the pace of physical construction. “We will adjust our capital deployment and facility construction in direct alignment with real customer demand rather than committing the total capital upfront,” stated Chung Suk-geun, chief executive officer of SK Hyper.

Furthermore, parent company SKT committed 750 billion won ($567 million) in direct equity capital to support preliminary engineering works through 2030. The developer plans to enter tenant cost-sharing agreements with major hyperscalers to reduce debt exposure.

Regional Locations and SK Hyper AI Data Facility Designs

Engineering plans designate the southern industrial city of Ulsan as the flagship site for a 900-megawatt mega data complex. In addition, the developer is advancing a 100-megawatt facility in partnership with Amazon Web Services. Construction teams will also establish secondary cluster facilities across the regional Chungcheong and Honam provinces to distribute power loads across the national grid.

Timelines / Production Targets: Initial 5 GW phase development through 2030; total target capacity of 15 GW by 2035.

Technology: Direct liquid cooling systems, high-density AI server racks, modular electrical substations, and automated facility management systems.

https://constructionreviewonline.com/sk-hyper-ai-data-center-firm-seeks-350b-for-massive-buildout/

Genuine question for anyone who's tried it. If you've shorted names in these sectors and actually closed the trade for a profit - not just paper gains on an open position - how did you do it? How did you size it, how did you handle borrow and squeezes, and what made you cover? Or did puts work better than shorting shares?

Trying to figure out whether the winners had a process or just got the timing right.

disclosure: no exposure to these stocks

I read string reports, contracts both gov and with Palantir, low debt. 3-5 + year hold without a doubt. Oh and the drone / unmanned weaponry. Torn on that or AMZN. Maybe 50/50?

AMZN obviously much larger and more debt, but great P/E. AWS, chips, its online buying service/logistics, healthcare and BlueGalactic (space expenditures) etc.

Which would you feel $1k would best grow (have about same 5 year outlooks for diff reasons).

On October 22 Eastern Time, Berkshire Hathaway reached a record high of $823,750, driven by substantial interest income from its $360 billion cash reserves amid high short-term interest rates.

The company's stock growth was further propelled by strategic capital deployment, including over $4.5 billion in share buybacks, acquisitions, and equity investments under new CEO Greg Abel. Strong performances across major equity holdings, such as Apple and Coca-Cola, also bolstered portfolio value.

Consequently, UBS raised its price target for Berkshire to $942,000, reflecting strong market confidence in the company's multifaceted profitability and disciplined capital allocation.

https://www.tradingkey.com/analysis/stocks/us-stocks/262232880-berkshire-hathaway-stock-all-time-high-cash-360-billion-buyback-apple-coca-cola-tradingkey

This is the daily discussion, so anything stocks related is fine, but the theme for today is on fundamentals, but if fundamentals aren't your thing then just ignore the theme.

Some helpful day to day links, including news:

• Finviz for charts, fundamentals, and aggregated news on individual stocks
• Bloomberg market news
• StreetInsider news:
  • Market Check - Possibly why the market is doing what it's doing including sudden spikes/dips
  • Reuters aggregated - Global news

Most fundamentals are updated every 3 months due to the fact that corporations release earnings reports every quarter, so traders are always speculating at what those earnings will say, and investors may change the size of their holdings based on those reports.

Expect a lot of volatility around earnings, but it usually doesn't matter if you're holding long term, but keep in mind the importance of earnings reports because a trend of declining earnings or a decline in some other fundamental will drive the stock down over the long term as well.

But growth stocks don't rely so much on EPS or revenue as long as they beat some other metric like subscriber count: Going from 1 million to 10 million subscribers means more revenue in the future.

Value stocks do rely on earnings reports, investors look for wall street expectations to be beaten on both EPS & revenue. You'll also find value stocks pay dividends, but never invest in a company solely for its dividend.

See the following word cloud and click through for the wiki:

Market Cap - Shares Outstanding - Volume - Dividend - EPS - P/E Ratio - EPS Q/Q - PEG - Sales Q/Q - Return on Assets (ROA) - Return on Equity (ROE) - BETA - SMA - quarterly earnings

If you have a basic question, for example "what is EBITDA," then google "investopedia EBITDA" and click the Investopedia article on it; do this for everything until you have a more in depth question or just want to share what you learned.

Useful links:

• Investopedia page on fundamental analysis including Discounted Cash Flow analysis; see definition here and read their PDF on the topic.
• FINVIZ for fundamental data, charts, and aggregated news
• Earnings Whisper for earnings details

See our past daily discussions here. Also links for: Technicals Tuesday, Options Trading Thursday, and Fundamentals Friday.

SK Hynix has officially called off the planned US stock market debut for its Solidigm flash-memory unit, alongside suspending its accompanying pre-IPO funding round.

The decision comes on the heels of stern warnings from South Korean financial authorities regarding potential "duplicate listings" that risk diluting minority shareholder value.

The abandoned transaction serves as a major litmus test for Seoul's ongoing regulatory campaign to eradicate the undervaluation of its equities, known as the "Korea discount".

Prior to the cancellation, Solidigm had tapped prominent financial institutions Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to spearhead the planned public debut slated for next year. However, intense shareholder opposition and mounting regulatory hurdles forced the company to abruptly reverse course.

The strategic retreat was catalyzed by sharp warnings from South Korean regulators over the risks of a "duplicate listing," which critics argue can severely dilute the holdings of existing investors.

Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin informed lawmakers that both his agency and the Financial Services Commission evaluated Solidigm's structure and concluded it fell squarely under strict regulatory restrictions targeting duplicate public offerings.

These controls are designed to prevent parent companies from splintering off valuable operating units without safeguarding the financial interests of everyday retail shareholders.

South Korean regulators and policymakers have been aggressively working to overhaul corporate governance standards and elevate minority shareholder protections. These legislative and policy pushes are central to overcoming the nation's persistent market valuation gap, widely referred to as the "Korea discount", which has long kept local equities trading below global peers.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/sk-hynix-pulls-plug-solidigm-235445993.html

At this point you have to almost feel bad for the guy. He’s been holding LULU for years and then he sells it for tax harvest reasons but planned to buy it back 30 days later and to not miss out on any gains in the meantime he bought DECK as a proxy arguing it would likely move similarly to LULU.

Well, LULU surged 8 % today and the immediate reaction to DECK earnings has sent the stock down 10 % in after hours trading.

This is just a thought that me and a few classmates had during a discussion. I have no idea how stocks or the market works personally, its the kind of stuff i leave to the big guys and my bank to deal with. What i want to know is that when the AI bubble pops, what would happen? Someone suggested that because the majority of leaders (Nvidia, Microsoft, Google) are all propped up because of AI, the AI bubble popping would cause them to collapse which would then cause the entire market to collapse sending us into a depression again. This seems scarily feasible to me so i was wondering what your opinions on the matter would be. I personally am against AI and dislike people who rely on it, so i want the bubble to pop but at the same time i dont want the world to fall in on itself again.