NEXON Co., Ltd.

Bitcoin strengthened its rebound from the $77,000 level hit the previous day, recovering to around $81,000 on the morning of the 4th. Following this trend, Japanese crypto-related stocks such as Metaplanet were broadly bought on the Tokyo market, and US Strategy also surged over 17%. Among Japanese listed companies, Metaplanet holds 43,000 BTC, maintaining its position as the largest domestic holder. Nexon holds 1,717 BTC, Remixpoint holds 1,506 BTC, and ANAP Holdings holds approximately 1,431 BTC. In addition, Escrit Energy, GYET, and gumi also hold smaller amounts, bringing the total holdings of listed companies to approximately 48,500 to 49,000 BTC. Notably, Converano previously held around 763 BTC but decided to sell all of it in July, and now holds zero. In the US market, Marathon Digital, Strive, and Coinbase also rose more than 10%.

Among stocks that moved the previous day, Xebio Holdings rose after first-quarter operating profit increased 38.7%, while Kasai Kogyo posted a sharp profit increase with first-quarter operating profit of 4.118 billion yen, up from 210 million yen in the same period a year earlier. On the other hand, Mynet fell after its first-half operating result swung to a loss of 132 million yen. Asics surged after revising upward its earnings and dividend forecasts for the fiscal year ending December 2026, and Nexon was bought after announcing a large special dividend. Trend fell sharply by 1,000 yen to 5,851 yen after a downward earnings revision pointed to a substantial profit decline.

On the Tokyo stock market on August 14, Nexon hit limit-up proportional allocation after announcing a special dividend of 415 yen per share, while Nintendo also rebounded sharply on reports of its Nintendo Switch 2 expansion into Indonesia. Nexon announced the previous day that it would pay a special dividend of 415 yen per share to shareholders of record as of September 30, 2026, which was taken as a positive surprise by the market. Nintendo was boosted by reports that it would launch the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch in Indonesia in December 2026. Tokai Tokyo Securities maintained its Outperform rating on Capcom and raised its target price from 4,780 yen to 5,090 yen, and Capcom rebounded for the first time in three days, with major home video game stocks generally bought. Meanwhile, Mynet plunged after posting an operating loss of 132 million yen in its second-quarter results, falling into the red, and Sun Electronics also fell sharply, at one point being sold down below the 8,000 yen level.

Buy orders flooded into Nexon from the morning, pushing the stock to a limit-up buy order. The company announced its second-quarter earnings on August 13, the previous day, along with a special dividend of 415 yen per share for shareholders of record as of September 30, 2026, which the market took as a positive surprise.

Nexon Co., Ltd. reported higher first-half results and issued a nine-month outlook on Thursday. For the nine months ending September 30, the company expects profit attributable to owners of parent in the range of ¥105.088 billion to ¥112.505 billion, representing growth of 29.4 percent to 38.6 percent year-over-year, with basic earnings per share between ¥133.58 and ¥143.00. Operating profit is projected in the range of ¥112.052 billion to ¥121.716 billion, between a drop of 4.1 percent and growth of 4.2 percent year-over-year, while consolidated revenue is expected to be between ¥394.042 billion and ¥406.746 billion, up 12.1 percent to 15.7 percent from last year. In the first half, attributable profit totaled ¥86.864 billion or ¥109.67 per share, a growth of 101.9 percent from ¥43.030 billion or ¥52.93 per share last year, with operating profit up 12.8 percent to ¥89.447 billion and revenue up 17.4 percent to ¥273.310 billion from ¥232.784 billion. In Japan, the shares closed Thursday's trading at ¥2,521.50, down 0.20 percent.

Anthropic opened a Seoul office and announced a series of partnerships across South Korea's artificial intelligence ecosystem as the Claude developer expands in Asia ahead of a public listing. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT to collaborate on public-sector AI adoption, model safety testing, and cybersecurity threats. Major business groups including LG CNS, Hanwha Solutions, and Samsung SDS are deploying Claude, while NAVER uses Claude Code for software development and Nexon has integrated Claude into game development workflows. Anthropic will also provide Claude access to about 60 researchers at South Korea's National AI Research Lab for work on AI safety and frontier research. The Seoul office is led by Kiyoung Choi, who joined in May as Representative Director of Korea from Snowflake.