A view of Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) are trading lower in the premarket session following news that Meta has entered the cloud business overnight. As U.S. semiconductor stocks including Micron and SanDisk plunged, selling pressure centered on large-cap chip stocks continued, raising concerns that the KOSPI’s recovery of the 9,000 mark could be further away.
According to Nextrade, as of 8:04 a.m. Monday, Samsung Electronics was trading at 297,500 won, down 5.41% from the previous session, giving up the 300,000 won level. SK hynix was also trading at 2.393 million won, down 6.52%. SK Square, SK hynix’s largest shareholder, plunged 5.92% to 1.653 million won, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics fell 5.80% to 2.077 million won.
Meta’s entry into the cloud business is cited as the reason for the chill in sentiment toward chip stocks. Analysts say that by using surplus artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity to launch its cloud business, Meta stirred market anxiety that AI demand may not be sufficient relative to hyperscalers’ investments.
As a result, large-cap semiconductor stocks fell together on the New York Stock Exchange overnight, including Micron (-10.4%) and SanDisk (-10.5%). AMD (-6.89%) and Intel (-9.03%) also fell sharply, while Nvidia, the leading AI chip stock, closed down 1.25%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed slightly lower at 52,305.24, down 0.03% from the previous session, while the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index fell 0.22% to 7,483.23 and the Nasdaq Composite index closed down 0.66% at 26,040.03. Amid optimism over negotiations between the United States and Iran, the closing price of Brent crude futures for September delivery fell 1.9%, but this did not prevent the indexes from declining.
As sentiment toward chip stocks cooled, most top market-cap stocks on Nextrade are falling together. Hyundai Motor, LG Energy Solution, Samsung Life Insurance, and Samsung C&T also showed weakness, making the KOSPI’s recovery of the 9,000 mark uncertain.
Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said of the plunge in chip stocks, “Like the DeepSeek incident early last year and the Turbo Quant incident early this year, noise has been generated in the AI investment narrative.” She added, “It is worth noting that an actual slowdown in AI demand or in earnings has not materialized.”
