KOSPI falls below 6,000, and ‘Samsung-Hynix’ shareholders lose again

[Financial News] Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were plunging more than 7% and 9%, respectively, in intraday trading on the 13th. While forecasts for semiconductor profits continue to rise, stock prices have been falling day after day, leading to analysis that market doubts about the durability of the boom are growing.
As of 10:24 a.m. that day, Samsung Electronics was trading at 233,000 won, down 6.99% from the previous trading day. SK Hynix was down 9.03% at 1.46 million won. 
Both stocks have fallen on every trading day since the 6th. Samsung Electronics was down 15.58% from its closing price of 276,000 won on the 2nd, while SK Hynix was down 20.70% from its close of 1.841 million won that same day. Over five trading days, Samsung Electronics fell 43,000 won per share and SK Hynix fell 381,000 won.
The previous day, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix had fallen 4.20% and 4.52%, respectively. Today, both stocks have extended their losses from the previous day, falling more sharply than the KOSPI.
As semiconductor large caps fell together, the KOSPI was also down 386.31 points (6.05%) from the previous trading day at 5,997.93 as of this time, giving up the 6,000 level. The decline continued even after a sell-sidecar was triggered at 9:47 a.m., with the index falling as low as 5,988.22 intraday.
A sell-sidecar is a mechanism that suspends the effectiveness of program sell orders for five minutes when the KOSPI 200 futures price remains at least 5% below its previous trading-day close for one minute. Today’s activation was the 50th in the KOSPI market this year and the 26th in the sell direction.
The declines were not limited to large caps. At the same time, 822 stocks on the main board were down, about 11 times the 75 that were up. The large-cap index fell 6.43%, while the mid-cap and small-cap indices dropped 2.57% and 2.03%, respectively.
In a report today, Lee Eun-taek, a researcher at KB Securities, attributed the fall in stock prices despite continuing upward revisions to memory-chip profit estimates to “distrust in future earnings.” He said, “The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios of both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have fallen below 4,” adding, “Investors still seem to view semiconductors as a cyclical industry and doubt their future earnings-generating capacity.”
However, he did not conclude that the stock-price decline meant the semiconductor boom was over. “I think the semiconductor cycle has not yet ended, but doubts about the industry being cyclical may be difficult to dispel completely,” Lee said.

[email protected] Choi Du-seon Reporter