South Korea’s benchmark index staged one of the most volatile one-day rallies in its history on Friday, rising by nearly 18 percent on the back of a furious rally by chip stocks. The Kospi closed at 6,595.45 gaining over 1000 points, recording its biggest one-day gain in absolute and percentage terms. The rally wiped out a bulk of the slumps seen in the last three sessions and brought the index back above the 6500 mark which was a distant figure a day back.
In the thick of it was the nation’s two remember-chip titans. Samsung Electronics plump larger by 26 percent to end the day at 262,500 won, its largest daily percentage rise since the Korean comes went public. SK Hynix’s was even thinner that by 30 percent attack limit, closing at 1 718 000 won.
As the pair lifted the overall index it even remind the contubernial dynamics of the hot war that South Korea still matters a lot in the global technology supply chain. The catalyst came through overnight from Wall Street. The results from some of the most significant American tech giants companies, Mainly those who have significant investments related to AI and cloud computing, eased concerns that the huge outlays on data centers might be slowing down. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index had already jumped over 8 percent in the U. S. Asian markets were poised to do the same.
The inflows from abroad into Korean shares kept flooding in, with net buying exceeding 7 trillion won, while local retail investors took profits amid the recent turmoil. The magnitude of the rebound was almost surreal for traders monitoring the screens in Seoul. Over a few hours the index swung from pale optimism on the open to thorough-going euphoria. Circuit breaker mechanisms meant to halt excessive moves were brought into play early, yet demand persisted right through the trading session.
By the close, the Kospi had delivered a bounce greater than any experienced in global financial turmoil of 2008, when the record stood at around 12 percent. The simple story behind the crowd is that sentiment is moving back toward the data. Behind those bank of thems is South Korea’s chip producers, which up until recently have been making the high bandwidth memory that sits at the heart of every AI system.
As investors realize that this demand may prove to be only of fleeting duration, the stocks get hammered. When the proof arrives that the spending has evolved into actual sales for the providers of cloud infrastructure, those same stocks can rally just as quickly. That was the story told during a single day last week. The won also appreciated versus the dollar as risk appetite stabilized, offering further support for foreign investors. Masses of other industrial groups like autos and shipbuilding followed the market higher, but there could be no doubt about the main theme. The index would have looked much more ordinary were it not for the monster moves in Samsung and SK Hynix.
