![\"Tokyo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260806.0737dca9e08d477ea192286fc1fbe8ea_P1.png\"\/ "\\"Japan")
Tokyo Stock Exchange. AP-Yonhap News<\/p>\nTokyo Stock Exchange. AP-Yonhap News<\/p>\n
Japan’s stock market is grappling with a phenomenon known as “Korea linkage,” in which it moves in excessive tandem with Korea’s market. Traders complain that sharp swings in Korean semiconductor stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are shaking Japan’s artificial intelligence (AI) and chip stocks, increasing the volatility of the Nikkei 225 index and delaying the return of foreign investors to Japanese equities.<\/p>\n
Nikkei Sways When Samsung, SK Move \u2014 Frustration Over ‘Korea Linkage’<\/p>\n
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 6th, the “Korea linkage” phenomenon has been cited as a reason why foreign investors’ purchases of Japanese stocks have not recovered as much as expected.<\/p>\n
Japan and Korea both have high proportions of AI and chip stocks, and their trading hours largely overlap. As a result, analysts say global investors treat the two markets as a single investment group, causing shifts in Korea’s supply and demand to be immediately reflected in Japan’s market.<\/p>\n
Indeed, on the Tokyo exchange on the 5th, AI and chip-related stocks such as Advantest, Fujikura, and Kioxia Holdings surged on the back of strong earnings from Ibiden, pushing the Nikkei 225 up by more than 2,000 yen during the session. However, as the KOSPI pared its intraday gains, the Nikkei’s gains also slowed.<\/p>\n
A trader at a major Japanese securities firm said, “Foreign long-term investors are actually moving into domestic-demand stocks,” adding, “It makes you wonder who is even buying AI-related stocks.” The recent rally, too, is being led by short-term funds centered on the futures market rather than foreign long-term capital, according to the assessment.<\/p>\n
Volatility at Highest Since Financial Crisis \u2014 Chip Stocks Do the Shaking<\/p>\n
The Nikkei had also pointed to Korea’s stock market as a reason for the high volatility of Japan’s market last month.<\/p>\n
According to the newspaper, the Nikkei 225’s intraday fluctuation rate was 2.1% in May, 2.6% in June, and 2.5% in July, exceeding 2% for three consecutive months. This is the first time since the September 2008 to April 2009 period of the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n
In particular, as trading in single-stock leveraged ETFs that track twice the daily returns of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix became more active, the volatility of Korean chip stocks expanded, and cases of Japanese AI and chip stocks such as Kioxia Holdings moving in the same direction increased, the analysis found.<\/p>\n
The paper also cited the rise in short-term trading as a factor increasing volatility, noting that the margin buying balance of Japanese retail investors exceeded 6 trillion yen, a record high.<\/p>\n
Yamafuji Shota, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Lab, said, “The increased margin trading in Kioxia, which has a high transaction unit price, is raising the Nikkei’s volatility.”<\/p>\n
“Watching KOSPI Over Earnings” \u2014 September Is the Turning Point<\/p>\n
The market views this high volatility as blocking the return of foreign institutions to buying.<\/p>\n
Une Naohide, CEO of Investment Lab, said, “Last month’s sharp fall marked an exit from the worst phase, but it is difficult to immediately increase the weighting of risk assets amid high volatility.”<\/p>\n
Sekiguchi Tomonobu, a fund manager at Asset Management One, said, “For Tokyo Electron and Murata Manufacturing, much of the burden of overvaluation has been resolved, and demand for AI investment remains.” He added, “If share prices return to movements that reflect corporate earnings and fundamentals rather than the flow of Korea’s stock market, I would like to expand the weighting.”<\/p>\n
The market sees September as the point when foreign investors will make a full-fledged return. As Bank of America (BofA) Securities holds a Japanese stock conference from August 31 to September 4, the number of investors scheduled to attend has increased from last year, and requests for individual meetings with AI companies have reportedly increased fourfold from a year earlier.<\/p>\n
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun forecast that if foreign investors again pursue investments centered on individual companies’ earnings and growth potential, the excessive synchronization with Korea’s stock market could also gradually ease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tokyo Stock Exchange. AP-Yonhap News Japan’s stock market is grappling with a phenomenon known as “Korea linkage,” in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[45302,191,189,23607,45301,188,190,45300,29917,5921,20996,32107],"class_list":["post-70071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-ai-chip-stocks","tag-economy","tag-economy-of-japan","tag-foreign-investors","tag-japan-stock-market-volatility","tag-japans-economy","tag-japanese-economy","tag-korea-linkage","tag-kospi","tag-nikkei-225","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}