Photo=Lotte department A calendar quirk that slashed the length of South Korea’s biggest autumn holiday kept more consumers close to home this year, delivering an unexpected windfall to the country’s domestic retail giants. During Chuseok—a major harvest festival often described as the Korean equivalent of U.S. Thanksgiving—millions of South Koreans traditionally travel to their hometowns or head overseas. Because the

(Photo=Samsung Electro-Mechanics) Wall Street’s AI trade has largely revolved around processors, memory and data centers. Samsung Electro Mechanics is making a nearly $5 billion bet that the next wave of spending will reach a far less visible part of the computing stack. The South Korean electronic components maker, an affiliate of Samsung Group, plans to invest $4.9 billion in South

(Photo=Gemini Generated Image) South Korean bank workers are set to get shorter customer service hours, higher wages and more flexible work rules under a tentative labor agreement that also headed off a planned nationwide strike. Beginning next April, bank branches would open at 9:30 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. while continuing to close at 4 p.m. The agreement between the

(Photo=MotionElements) South Korean retail investors sharply reduced their purchases of U.S. stocks in August, but the slowdown looks less like a retreat from Wall Street than a pause after a rush to buy American technology shares during the previous month’s selloff. Net purchases of U.S. stocks by South Korean investors fell 57.7% from July to $1.96 billion in August, according

Photo=BIGHIT MUSIC K-pop’s business model is increasingly built around the combination of streaming, global touring and fan-platform engagement, giving music companies multiple ways to monetize a major release. Tomorrow X Together is leaning into that model with a new album arriving immediately after a three-night Seoul concert run in November. Tomorrow X Together, also known as TXT, will release its