KOSPI Double Crash & Supreme Court 7 Years SKH ADR ₩37T & GPT-5.6 Launch

The Supreme Court on July 9 upheld former President Yoon Suk-yeol's 7-year prison term for obstructing his CIO arrest, the first final ruling in the eight cases linked to the December 3 martial law declaration. The decision topped real-time search charts. Former NSC Deputy Director Kim Tae-hyo was also arrested the same day on insurrection-related charges.

MBC reported on July 11 that Lee Kang-in's departure from PSG to Atletico Madrid was imminent. The transfer fee was estimated at approximately ₩70B on a five-year contract. Atletico under Diego Simeone reportedly identified Lee as a key addition to their Champions League push.

Heavy rains struck the country on July 9, sweeping a man in his 70s into a river in North Gyeongsang Province, while over 423 residents were evacuated and more than 200 infrastructure sites sustained damage, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported. Dozens of KTX trains were delayed, and heavy-rain warnings were in effect across North Chungcheong Province, with rainfall exceeding 200mm in some areas.

The amended Network Act imposing up to 5x punitive damages and fines up to ₩1B for repeat deliberate disinformation took effect July 7. The ruling party framed it as a firewall for public discourse; the opposition labeled it a 'gag law' that infringes free speech, Financial News reported. Hoaxes urging people to delete old posts spread the day before; the government clarified that personal opinions, political satire, and private messages are exempt, per Seoul Shinmun.

China's Navy fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine into the open Pacific on July 6, with the warhead reportedly landing in a designated target area some 7,300 km away. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan received advance notice; the US did not, CNN reported.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced her candidacy for the 2027 presidential election immediately after a court ordered her to wear an electronic ankle bracelet due to her embezzlement conviction, Democracy Now reported.

The Federal Reserve's June FOMC minutes released on July 8 revealed members divided between holding and raising rates, CNBC reported. The same day the New York Fed announced consumer 1-year inflation expectations surged to 3.7%, the highest in three years.

Korea's June consumer price inflation hit 3.2%, the highest since December 2023, raising market expectations that the Bank of Korea will raise rates at its July 16 meeting, Business Korea reported. The won closed at 1,530.3 per dollar on July 6.

On July 7 (US local time) the Nasdaq fell 1.16% to 25,818.69. Micron dropped 4.7% while KLA, Marvell, Broadcom, and AMD also declined. The semiconductor ETF SMH fell more than 3%, with Samsung's results seen as falling short of the most bullish analyst targets, TheStreet reported.

Ukrainian forces struck 36 Russian oil tankers and refinery sites with drones over four days in the Azov and Black Seas, causing fuel shortages that prompted Moscow to ban diesel exports, the Moscow Times reported.

Samsung Electronics' Q2 preliminary operating profit of ₩89.4T set an all-time quarterly record and exceeded Nvidia's recent quarterly operating profit of $53.5B (~₩81.8T), Hankook Ilbo reported. The result was 56.21% higher than the previous quarter, driven by surging demand for HBM and data-center memory from AI infrastructure buildout.

CASC's Long March 10B placed a satellite in orbit on July 10 and then caught the first-stage booster with a net on an offshore platform — the second country to recover an orbital-class booster at sea after SpaceX, and the first to use a hook-catch method with no landing legs, SpaceNews reported.

Meta's Superintelligence Lab unveiled multimodal reasoning model Muse Spark 1.1 with a 1-million-token context window at $1.25 per input token — up to one-quarter the price of leading rivals, TechCrunch reported.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport released its first safety guidelines for Level-4 driverless vehicles. Commercial operation permits require at least 15,000 km of test mileage and mandatory redundant systems, emergency braking, and remote monitoring. An amendment to the Vehicle Management Act is also planned by year-end, Korean Economy reported.

xAI launched Grok 4.5, a model optimized for coding and agent tasks developed in collaboration with Cursor. Pricing is $2 per input token and $6 per output token, TechCrunch reported.

Five public-sector and teachers' unions mobilized 20,000 participants at a rally in Gwanghwamun on July 11, demanding pension gap relief, pay increases, and political rights, Financial News reported. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) separately declared a general strike for July 15.

The People Power Party's central ethics committee convened on July 6 to review more than 30 disciplinary cases, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported. The same day, Rep. Kim Min-seok declared his candidacy for Democratic Party chair at the Aug 17 convention — the first in the field — choosing Gwangju as his launch venue to court Honam voters.

Heavy rainfall on July 9 swept a man in his 70s into a river in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. Over 423 residents were evacuated and more than 200 infrastructure sites sustained damage, with rainfall exceeding 200mm in parts of North Chungcheong Province, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported.

Toy Story 5 drew 429,038 viewers over the weekend of July 3–5 to hold the weekend box-office crown for a third consecutive week, pushing its cumulative audience to 2,218,501, TV Report said. The animated film held off Korean competitor 'Nuzdongja' to maintain summer blockbuster leadership.

Defending champions Argentina trailed Egypt 0-2 at the round of 16 on July 8 (Korea time) before scoring three second-half goals to win 3-2. Messi contributed one goal and one assist to reach a World Cup career total of 21 goals, setting the first-ever record of scoring in six consecutive World Cup knockout matches, News1 reported.

Karolina Muchova beat Coco Gauff 6-2, 1-6, 7-6(10) in the Wimbledon women's semifinal on July 9, and Linda Noskova defeated Kostyuk 6-4, 7-5, producing the first all-Czech women's Wimbledon final, CBS Sports reported.

Korea's H1 EV sales reached 198,969 units, more than doubling year-on-year, Financial News reported. Tesla led with 56,139 units versus Hyundai's 39,575, the first time Tesla has overtaken Hyundai in the Korean market. BYD expanded its share from 0.7% to 5.9%.

Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport released the country's first safety guidelines for Level-4 driverless vehicle commercial operations: at least 15,000 km of test mileage, redundant autonomous systems, emergency braking, and remote monitoring are required. A Vehicle Management Act amendment is planned for year-end, Korean Economy reported.

Total H1 EV sales in Korea reached 198,969 units — one in four new vehicles — with BYD lifting its market share from 0.7% to 5.9%, marking a notable advance by the Chinese brand, Financial News reported.

A petition calling for the impeachment of Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek resurfaced over allegations that he was absent without leave for seven months during his 1984 reserve duty, crossing 300,000 signatures, Financial News reported. The Ministry of National Defense issued an official statement calling the claim 'blatantly false,' while the opposition demanded full disclosure of his military records and his resignation. Fact-check: The Ministry of National Defense officially stated the claim does not accord with the facts.