'KOSPI Nears 7,000 as SK hynix Gains More Than 5% on Semiconductor Tailwinds [fn Morning Market Update]

[Financial News] The KOSPI Composite Index rose about 3% on the 7th, moving close to the 7,000 mark. Gains in major semiconductor stocks, including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, led the index higher. According to the Korea Exchange (KRX), as of 10:15 a.m., the KOSPI Composite Index was trading at 6,884.40, up 2.94% from the previous trading day. The index opened at 6,910.78, up 3.34% from the previous session, and climbed as high as 6,923.64 before giving back some of its gains.
Foreign investors and institutions were net buyers of 767.4 billion won and 807.9 billion won, respectively, while individual investors were net sellers of 1.8652 trillion won.
Large-cap stocks by market capitalization were also broadly higher. Samsung Electronics rose 3.72%, while SK hynix gained 5.71%. SK Square, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Electronics preferred shares, Hyundai Motor, and KB Financial Group advanced 5.28%, 1.28%, 2.30%, 1.96%, and 1.40%, respectively. LG Energy Solution and Samsung Biologics were also slightly higher, up 0.56% and 0.41%, respectively.
KOSDAQ also continued to rise. At the same time, KOSDAQ was at 824.96, up 1.41% from the previous trading day. It opened at 822.91, up 1.16% from the previous session, and followed a similar trend. Foreign investors bought 9.5 billion won, while individual investors and institutions sold 15.3 billion won and 400 million won, respectively.
In the KOSDAQ market, EcoPro, ECOPRO BM, Rainbow Robotics, Jusung Engineering, EO Technics, WONIK IPS, LEENO Industrial, SIMMTECH, and ROBOTIS rose 0.36%, 0.57%, 0.98%, 3.93%, 6.09%, 4.97%, 3.00%, 4.41%, and 0.66%, respectively. Alteogen fell 0.52%.
The strength of South Korean equities is attributed to a rally in U.S. semiconductor stocks. On the 4th, local time, New York stocks fell after August nonfarm employment significantly exceeded market expectations, reviving concerns about interest-rate hikes. However, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) rose 3.38%, diverging from the broader New York market.
Expectations that demand for artificial-intelligence (AI) computing would expand flowed into semiconductor stocks following OpenAI's unveiling of GPT-6 Astra. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang also said that Astra was trained using more than 100,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) based on NVIDIA's Grace Blackwell NVL72 platform, evaluating it by saying, "Artificial general intelligence (AGI) has arrived."
Han Ji-young, a researcher at KIWOOM Securities, said, "As indicated by Friday's rally in U.S. semiconductor stocks, the possibility has increased that persistent selling pressure on semiconductor stocks at home and abroad is being exhausted." She added, "As the market digests Oracle's earnings and the U.S. August consumer price index (CPI), it would be appropriate to set a scenario in which the stock market's recovery momentum strengthens from last week as the base case."
[email protected] Han Young-jun Reporter