An employee works at the dealing room of Hana Bank in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 1st. Yonhap News
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) shares surged more than 10% during intraday trading, pushing its market capitalization past 2,000 trillion won and lifting the benchmark KOSPI above 8,800 points. The visit to Korea by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has fueled expectations of broad industrial collaboration in artificial intelligence (AI) and beyond, sending related stocks sharply higher.
According to the Korea Exchange, the KOSPI was trading at 8,848.47 points on Monday, up 372.30 points or 4.39% from the previous session. The index opened at 8,485.67 points and quickly cleared the 8,500, 8,600, 8,700 and 8,800-point thresholds as gains accelerated.
The KOSPI’s surge triggered a sidecar — a temporary suspension of program buy orders — for the first time in three trading sessions. At around 11:30:32 a.m., program buy orders were halted for five minutes due to volatility in the KOSPI 200 futures index. At the time of activation, the KOSPI 200 futures index stood at 1,417.90, up 67.90 points or 5.02% from the previous day’s close. It was the first KOSPI buy sidecar trigger since November 27.
In the main bourse, institutional investors are leading the rally with net purchases of 2.5081 trillion won. By contrast, foreign investors are net selling 2.1366 trillion won and individual investors 337.2 billion won. Foreign investors are seen continuing portfolio rebalancing in response to the market’s sharp rise.
Samsung Electronics, the KOSPI’s bellwether, was trading at 348,500 won, up 31,500 won or 9.94% from the previous session, on news that the company shipped the world’s first samples of its seventh-generation high-bandwidth memory product, HBM4E. The stock rose more than 10% intraday, with its market capitalization surpassing 2,000 trillion won as a single stock.
SK hynix (000660.KS) was up 1.33% and SK Square (402340.KS) was up 2.19%, both lagging the index gain. Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) rose 7.05%, Samsung Life Insurance (032830.KS) gained 6.95%, and Samsung C&T (028260.KS) advanced 9.71%, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150.KS) fell 4.42% and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (329180.KS) slipped 0.43%.
LG Group stocks also showed strength on the day. LG Hellovision (037560.KS), LG Electronics (066570.KS), and LG CNS (064400.KS) all hit their daily upper price limits, while LG Corp. (003550.KS) jumped 22.92%, LG Innotek (011070.KS) rose 14.40%, and LG Uplus (032640.KS) gained 3.47%.
Huang is expected to meet LG Group Chairman Kwang-mo Koo during his visit to Korea this week to discuss expanded cooperation in physical AI. Beyond physical AI collaboration with LG Electronics, the discussions are likely to include cooperation with affiliates such as LG AI Research, LG Innotek, and LG Uplus, fueling concentrated buying in related stocks.
“With AI infrastructure investment ongoing, the rally in the Korean stock market is likely to continue,” said Kang Hyun-ki, an analyst at DB Securities. “Signals of gains in leading stocks, including the semiconductor sector, remain intact.” He projected that the KOSPI could surpass 10,000 points in the second half and rise as high as 11,700 points.
The KOSDAQ was trading at 1,048.72, down 26.08 points or 2.43% from the previous session. In the secondary market, foreign investors are net buying 519.2 billion won worth of shares, while individuals and institutions are net selling 369.9 billion won and 138.4 billion won, respectively.
Rainbow Robotics (277810.KQ) was up 14.25%, while Ecopro BM (247540.KQ) fell 4.15%, Alteogen (196170.KQ) declined 2.57%, Ecopro (086520.KQ) dropped 5.40%, and Jusung Engineering slid 7.75%.