From the Desk of InvestorPlace: I don't forward many outside notes to my readers. But this one from my colleague Luke Lango stopped me cold. If you've been following the OpenAI IPO story — and most of our readers have — what Luke is about to share could completely change how you approach it. Please read this carefully before IPO day arrives.

Dear Reader,

It's no longer theoretical. It's officially in motion.

OpenAI – the inventors of ChatGPT – just filed the confidential paperwork to go public.

And it could be the largest IPO in American history.

We all knew it was coming. But here's what almost everyone is about to get wrong.

They'll rush to buy OpenAI the moment it hits the market.

And if history is any guide, most of them will regret it.

In nearly every blockbuster tech IPO of the last 15 years, the people who bought on day one underperformed.

While a small group of other folks made as much as 3,900% on a little known investment connected to the IPO.

I call it the Pre-IPO Backdoor.

In my view, it's one of the best moneymaking opportunities out there.

It rarely comes around. You only see it when a huge tech company goes public.

And it's about to open again, thanks to the OpenAI IPO.

There's only one catch. You need to get in before OpenAI actually goes public.

And now the filing is official.

For the full story - and a free ticker you can invest in TODAY - click here.

Sincerely,

Luke Lango
Senior Technology Analyst, InvestorPlace

P.S. There's every chance the OpenAI IPO will be the biggest in American history. And that means the Pre-IPO Backdoor opportunities could be the biggest ever too. You may never see another opportunity like this in your lifetime. For your free ticker, click here now.

BREAKING NEWS

📉 South Korea Just Had Its Third Biggest Crash Ever. Now It's Our Turn.

South Korea's KOSPI index just crashed 10% overnight. Trading halted for 20 minutes. Samsung and SK Hynix, which together make up more than half the entire index, both fell over 12%. Half a trillion dollars in market value vanished in a single session. This morning, that panic crossed the Pacific. Over $1.1 trillion has already been wiped from US markets at the open.

Why South Korea Crashed

There are real reasons here, but honesty matters. Sometimes markets just run too far and then don't need a single reason to fall. The KOSPI had surged 200% in the past year. It was up 90% just year to date. That is not sustainable. At some point gravity shows up.

But there were specific catalysts too:

• 🧠 MSCI did not add South Korea to its Developed Markets watchlist, killing a key thesis that had attracted foreign money all year. With no upgrade possible before 2027, the bull case weakened instantly.

• 📦 Reports surfaced that SK Hynix may slow its HBM4 chip expansion and shift capacity toward regular memory chips. Markets read that as weaker AI demand even though SK Hynix's 2026 HBM supply was already fully sold out.

• 💸 Foreign investors dumped nearly $3.8 billion worth of Korean stocks in a single session. When institutions exit that fast, retail investors get left holding the bag.

Why US Markets Are Feeling It

The US market came into today already stretched. Alphabet fell 6% yesterday over AI talent departures. SpaceX dropped 16% over its bond deal. The Buffett indicator, which compares total stock market value to the size of the entire US economy, is sitting at an all-time high. When a crash this size happens overnight in a major market, US investors wake up nervous and the sell button gets a workout.

Here is the honest take on whether there is a real reason for this. There is not one clean catalyst. This is a combination of overvalued markets, Fed rate hike fears, concentrated AI bets unwinding, and a market that had simply gone up too far too fast looking for any excuse to correct.

What You Should Be Doing Right Now

We said this morning that now is a great time to be building a cash position. Today is a perfect illustration of exactly why. If Bank of America is right and the Fed hikes rates three times this year, this kind of volatility becomes the new normal. Higher rates compress valuations across the board and markets already priced for perfection feel it the hardest.

This is not the time to panic sell. It is also not yet the time to back up the truck and buy aggressively. We are still in a bull market. This is a correction inside that bull market, not the end of it. The AI story is not dead. Micron reports earnings tomorrow and that number tells us whether the chip demand thesis is actually cracking or whether today was just noise.

The Munch Take: When a market goes up 200% in a year and then falls 10% in a day, that is not a crash. That is math catching up with enthusiasm. South Korea got ahead of itself. The US got ahead of itself. The correction was always coming. The only question was what would pull the trigger. Today it was Korea. Tomorrow it might be Micron. Build your cash. Stay patient. The people with dry powder when this settles are going to eat extremely well.

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THE MARKET WATCH

💴 The Japanese Yen Is At Its Weakest In 40 Years. Here's Why You Should Care.

The Japanese Yen is in freefall. One US dollar now buys 161.5 yen, putting it at levels not seen since 1986. The last time the yen was this weak, a gallon of gas cost less than a dollar. Japan is staring down a currency crisis in slow motion while the whole world watches.

What Is Actually Happening

The yen is weak because Japan's interest rates are much lower than America's. Think of it this way. When US rates are high and Japan's rates are low, investors pull their money out of Japan to put it somewhere that pays more. That means selling yen and buying dollars, which pushes the yen lower. Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan, raised rates to 1% last week hoping it would help. The yen barely flinched.

Three things are hitting at once:

• 💴 Japan's rate hike to 1% is still tiny compared to the US rate of 3.75%, meaning the gap is still enormous and carry traders keep selling yen.

• 🛡️ Japan spent roughly 11.7 trillion yen in April on direct market intervention to prop up the currency and it is all gone, with the yen back to where it started.

• 🔴 The price line every USD/JPY trader is watching is 161.96. Break above it, and the yen hits its weakest level since 1986, almost guaranteeing another round of Japanese intervention.

The Munch Take: Japan raised rates, warned markets verbally multiple times, and spent tens of billions defending the yen. None of it worked for long. The fundamental problem is simple. You cannot fight a 2.75% interest rate gap with words and occasional dollar selling. Until that gap narrows, the yen stays under pressure.

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