Highlights for the morning: Meta's biggest AI deal, Korea buys bonds, India hits record highs

In South Korea, foreign investors are buying bonds due to political stability and expectations of the country's inclusion in global indices. The Indian stock market is approaching new highs: according to Julius Baer, the revival of consumption in the lower and middle strata of the population, supported by lower taxes and inflation, will be the driver of this growth. Meta is in talks to invest over $10 billion in the startup Scale AI, which has already become an important player in the generative AI ecosystem. These and other topics are covered in our review of key events for the morning of June 9.

Foreign investors are showing the most interest in South Korean bonds since April 2023 as demand for local assets rises amid the formation of a new government, writes Bloomberg. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, foreign investors bought $652 million worth of bonds on Thursday, June 5, the 29th consecutive trading day of net purchases. On Friday, markets in the country were closed due to a holiday.

Political certainty in South Korea after a period of power vacuum increases the attractiveness of local assets, the agency writes. Although concerns remain that additional government debt issuance may be required to finance the fiscal plans of new President Lee Jae-men, demand is supported by expectations of lower interest rates and the possible inclusion of South Korea in the FTSE Russell World Government Bond Index.

Optimism is evident in other markets as well. Asset managers are increasing investments in South Korean equities or revising their forecasts upwards, while Goldman Sachs strategists expect the revaluation of the won.

The Kospi index jumped 1.6% on Monday, leading gains in Asian markets. It had gained more than 4 percent in each of the previous two weeks, driven by foreign investment inflows and expectations that the president will promote shareholder-friendly policies.

Julius Baer predicts Indian stocks will hit new highs in the second half of the current fiscal year on the back of a recovery in domestic consumption, reports Bloomberg.  «The key theme for the near term will be the revival of consumption in India,» said Nitin Raheja, head of equity fund management at Julius Baer India. Spending growth, he believes, will come from the lower and middle classes, helped by slowing inflation, heavy monsoon rains and lower income taxes.

While high equity valuations may keep the market in a sideways trend in the coming months, Raheja believes the NSE Nifty 50 index will hit new highs after October as strengthening consumer demand translates into higher corporate earnings. The index is now just 4.6 percent below the record set in September last year, and the recent major central bank rate cut reinforces expectations of a fresh rally in the market.

World, a project for biometric identification created with OpenAI head Sam Altman, is entering the U.K. market this week, reports CNBC. Eye-scanning devices called Orb, which are capable of confirming a user's identity, will launch in London from Thursday. Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow will also launch in the coming months.

The goal of the project is to prevent fraud using technologies like dipfake. The system scans the face and iris of the eye and then creates a unique code that confirms that the person in front of it. The user then receives some WLD cryptocurrency and can use the anonymous World ID to log into various apps - such as Minecraft, Reddit and Discord.

Adrian Ludwig, chief architect of one of World's main developers, Tools for Humanity, told CNBC that the project is capturing growing interest from companies and governments amid rising risks of AI fraud, from online banking to video games. «It's no longer a theory. It's become part of everyday life,» he says. World is moving from the research and development stage to a full-fledged network, he says.

Since its launch in 2021, World has been criticized over privacy concerns. However, the company claims that biometric data is encrypted and the original information is then deleted. The project now has about 13 million verified users and is actively scaling.

Meta Platforms is negotiating a multi-billion dollar investment in artificial intelligence startup Scale AI, sources told Bloomberg. The funding could exceed $10 billion, making it one of the largest investments in the history of private venture capital investment, the agency wrote. And for Meta, it would be the largest external AI investment and a rare step -before it relied mostly on internal research and an open AI development strategy.

The terms of the deal are not finalized yet and may change. Representatives of Meta and Scale declined to comment to Bloomberg.

Scale AI, whose clients include Microsoft and OpenAI, is involved in partitioning the data needed to develop machine learning models. The startup has become one of the main beneficiaries of the generative AI boom. It was valued at around $14 billion in 2024 amid a funding round involving Meta and Microsoft. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that the company was negotiating a tender offer based on a $25 billion valuation.

Asian markets rose on Monday, June 9, amid expectations of trade talks between Washington and Beijing and following the release of China's inflation and foreign trade data, reports CNBC.

- Mainland China's CSI 300 index added 0.18 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.01 percent.

- Japan's Nikkei 225 index was up 1.05%, while the broader Topix index was up 0.66%.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index jumped 1.6 percent and the Kosdaq small-company index added nearly 1 percent.

- India's Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex were up around 0.4 percent in early trade.

- Australian markets are closed due to a public holiday.

- Futures on American indices were in a slight minus at the time of publication of this text;