Communist Party pledges to reach deeper into China’s tech, digital platform sectors

A research team at Sejong University has found that stocks attracting greater attention from retail investors tend to generate lower returns in subsequent periods. The university said the findings were published last month in the prestigious Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money. The team was led by Lee Eun-mi, a professor at the university’s College of Business and Economics, and included doctoral students Yang Pujian and Yang Liu. The paper, titled “The Retreat of Arbitrage Capital: Attention Level and Nonlinear Order Flow Dynamics,” lists Yang Pujian as the first author, Lee as the corresponding author and Yang Liu as a co-author. The research team examined how retail investor attention affects institutional trading behavior and stock market returns. The researchers analyzed data from China’s A-share market spanning 2012 to 2024 and measured investor attention using the Search Volume Index (SVI) provided by Baidu, China’s leading search engine. The analysis found that stocks attracting greater investor attention tend to generate relatively lower retu

Hana Financial Group said Sunday it participated in the 2026 Autism Race the day before to promote public understanding of autism and foster a culture of respect and inclusion. The group has officially sponsored the annual running campaign, organized by the Autism Society of Korea, for seven consecutive years since 2020. About 100 participants, including Hana Financial Group Vice Chairman Lee Eun-hyung, employees and their families, voluntarily joined Saturday’s event, running alongside participants with autism. All registration fees paid by the group’s employees will be donated to the association to support people with autism. The campaign aims to encourage people to view differences not as barriers or grounds for discrimination, but as diversity that enriches society. “It is meaningful to join efforts to broaden understanding and respect for people with autism and build an inclusive society,” Lee said. “We will continue providing sincere attention and support so that people with autism and other members of society can grow together as respected members of our communities.” Han

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited the company’s semiconductor advanced packaging technology laboratory in Japan, Sunday, pledging to continue expanding its research workforce there and develop the lab into a global R&D hub for next-generation packaging technologies. According to Samsung Electronics, Lee visited Advanced Package Lab (APL) in Yokohama and discussed with researchers the latest developments in technologies for advanced packaging materials and processes, as well as ways to strengthen cooperation with Japan's materials, parts and equipment industries. Lee stressed the importance of securing advanced packaging technologies, as they are emerging as critical for artificial intelligence (AI) processor chips. APL was established in 2023 and held its official opening ceremony in September this year. Starting in 2024, Samsung Electronics has been investing 40 billion yen ($254 million) over five years to establish its research infrastructure in Japan and strengthen its competitiveness in advanced packaging technologies. APL specializes in developing and va

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has recommended that shareholders vote in favor of appointing Lee Jae-keun as chairman of KB Financial Group. In its voting recommendations report obtained by The Korea Times, Sunday, the world's largest proxy advisory firm said "a vote for this resolution is warranted given the absence of any known issues concerning the nominee and the company's board dynamics." ISS also noted that KB Financial Group maintains good disclosure practices regarding committee meetings, voluntarily providing attendance records to help shareholders better assess directors' effectiveness and contributions. Most companies in Korea follow a disclosure template provided by the Korea Exchange that does not require companies to disclose committee meeting attendance records. As a result, it is common for companies to omit such information from regulatory filings, ISS added. The recommendation comes ahead of KB Financial Group's extraordinary shareholders' meeting on Nov. 20, when shareholders will vote on Lee's appointment as group chairman. If appointed, Lee will lead the gr

CJ Olive Young has expanded its Olive Better wellness retail platform to five locations, adding branches tailored to office workers and tourists as it seeks to make wellness products part of consumers’ everyday routines. The expansion comes nine months after the first store opened in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun area in January. The company added stores at Starfield Coex Mall in southern Seoul and in Seongsu in eastern Seoul both last month, adapting product selections and experiences to each neighborhood’s customers. The Coex store focuses on “office wellness,” targeting workers seeking convenient ways to maintain healthy habits during busy schedules. Healthy snacks and protein products occupy the front of the store, helping shoppers quickly find items suited to their needs. A Daily Routine Bar offers products for individual purchase, allowing customers to try wellness items during commutes or lunch breaks. The Seongsu store, which opened Friday, is the chain’s largest and emphasizes experiences for trend-conscious shoppers and foreign tourists. It includes Better Bar, a food and beve

A miniature keyboard presented by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Samsung Group executives is drawing attention, as the device is designed not for conventional typing but specifically for vibe coding using OpenAI's Codex. The gift is being seen as a glimpse into what Altman described to the executives as OpenAI's vision for the future of computer interaction. According to OpenAI and Samsung, Altman visited a Samsung Group training center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Saturday and engaged in a fireside chat with more than 50 presidents of Samsung Electronics and other affiliates. During the event, Altman presented the Samsung executives with Codex Micro keyboards, designed to be used with Codex. Altman said the keyboard reflects the idea that people may no longer need a full keyboard in a world where they can interact with computers through voice commands and artificial intelligence (AI), adding that the device could also help users work with Codex more quickly. The Codex Micro Keyboard is a miniature keyboard released as the first hardware product under the OpenAI brand. Developed in collaborati

KB Kookmin Bank has secured the lead arranger role in a 12.6 trillion won ($9.45 billion) project to build artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure in Korea, the lender said Sunday. Led by Brookfield, one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers, the project involves acquiring major high-performance computing equipment, including graphics processing units (GPUs), and supplying the infrastructure to Naver Cloud. The deal marks the largest syndicated loan arrangement in Korea’s history. Such loans allow multiple financial institutions to jointly finance a large-scale project. It is also the country’s first GPU financing deal — a departure from conventional project financing, which has typically centered on assets like real estate or power plants. Rather than relying on immediate returns, the structure uses anticipated long-term revenue from supplying AI computing capacity to support the project's substantial upfront investment needs. Of the 12.6 trillion won in total costs, roughly 10.7 trillion won will be raised through loans. As lead arranger, KB Kookmin Ba

HD Hyundai Robotics is working with Palantir Technologies to integrate artificial intelligence (AI), simulation and human engineers’ expertise into robot programming, aiming to cut programming costs by more than half. According to HD Hyundai Robotics on Sunday, Ahn Sung-hwan, the company's chief technology officer and vice president, outlined the collaboration during a keynote address at Palantir’s recent Sovereignty Bootcamp in New York. He presented his company’s strategy for applying physical AI and its vision for the technology. The collaboration focused on changing how human engineers can solve problems on factory floors. Under the two companies’ collaboration, AI agents analyze existing robot programs and propose improvements. The engineers can then refine what the AI comes up with using their practical experiences. Traditionally, skilled engineers have had to observe robots on-site and repeatedly adjust work sequences, movement paths and speeds. This reliance on individual experience has made the process difficult to standardize. HD Hyundai Robotics said the two companies

The Hong Kong Bar Association has warned that a proposed phased redevelopment of the High Court, which could span more than a decade, is “not workable” and risks deterring legal practitioners from joining the bench. The association, the professional body for barristers, urged the government to consider faster alternatives, such as repurposing the existing District Court building. In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post on Sunday, association chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet SC...

US first lady Melania Trump is unlikely to travel to China with the president for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen this month. “First lady Melania Trump is not scheduled to attend the events in person,” her office said in response to a query about her travel plans. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the Philippines for this year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit before travelling to the November 18-19 Apec event, where he will meet his Chinese...

In the third of a four-part Health Matters wellness series on frontier medicine in Hong Kong, Fiona Sun examines how a local start-up is testing a gene-editing therapy that could tackle a group of inherited eye diseases at their genetic source and what it will take to turn it into a treatment patients can access. For 15 years, Professor Zheng Zongli has worked to make gene-editing therapies safe enough to treat diseases with limited treatment options. His path has taken him from a PhD in medical...

L.A. voters will decide between Mayor Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman, with the city's future direction on the line. As the contentious race nears the finish, the candidates are in a dead heat.