South Korea’s KOSPI index surged more than 6% on the 20th, breaking through the 6,880 level, with a buy-side circuit breaker triggered during the session. Overnight measures by the U.S. Treasury Department to stabilize Treasury yields and a massive shareholder return policy announced by SK Hynix immediately after the previous day’s market close lifted investor sentiment.<\/p>\n
According to the Korea Exchange, the KOSPI stood at 6,881.69 as of 10:52 a.m., up 410.52 points (6.34%) from the previous session. The index opened at 6,680.34, up 209.17 points (3.23%), before extending gains, with a buy-side circuit breaker triggered around 9:57 a.m. A buy-side circuit breaker is activated when KOSPI 200 futures prices rise more than 5% above the reference price for one consecutive minute, halting institutional investors’ program buy orders for five minutes.<\/p>\n
With this, the KOSPI market has now seen 24 buy-side circuit breakers and 25 sell-side circuit breakers this year, totaling 49 circuit breaker activations. A sell-side circuit breaker was triggered just the previous day on the 19th.<\/p>\n
The market shrugged off concerns about investment contraction stemming from the global rise in Treasury yields. In particular, SK Hynix, which announced a 40 trillion won (approximately $28.7 billion) share buyback and cancellation plan immediately after the previous day’s close, surged 12.73% to trade at 1.69 million won (approximately $1,200). Samsung Electronics rose 8.89% to 269,500 won (approximately $190), while Samsung Electronics preferred shares gained 9.33% to 189,900 won (approximately $140).<\/p>\n
Buoyed by the sharp rally in large-cap semiconductor stocks, most top market-cap names advanced, including Hyundai Motor (1.81%), Samsung Electro-Mechanics (0.94%), LG Energy Solution (2.24%), Samsung Biologics (1.42%), and Samsung C&T (6.34%). SK Square also climbed 7.97%.<\/p>\n
On the supply-demand front, foreign investors and institutions net bought 414.6 billion won (approximately $297.3 million) and 256 billion won (approximately $183.5 million), respectively, driving the rally. Retail investors, meanwhile, net sold 963 billion won (approximately $690.4 million). In program trading, arbitrage trades recorded net selling of 2.2 billion won (approximately $1.6 million), but non-arbitrage trades saw net buying of 251.5 billion won (approximately $180.3 million), resulting in an overall net buying position of 249.3 billion won (approximately $178.7 million).<\/p>\n
The KOSDAQ index traded at 843.34, up 18.83 points (2.29%). Foreign investors net sold 119.8 billion won (approximately $85.9 million), while retail and institutional investors net bought 64.1 billion won (approximately $46.0 million) and 45.3 billion won (approximately $32.5 million), respectively. Alteogen, the largest KOSDAQ-listed company by market capitalization, surged 10.54% to 335,500 won (approximately $240), while EcoPro (3.71%), EcoPro BM (4.92%), Rainbow Robotics (3.35%), and Jusung Engineering (2.62%) all posted gains.<\/p>\n
In Seoul’s foreign exchange market, the won-dollar exchange rate traded at 1,393.6 won, up 3.60 won from the previous session, still below the 1,400 won mark.<\/p>\n
The sharp rally largely reflects bargain hunting following the previous day’s plunge. On the 19th, the KOSPI tumbled 5.8% to close at 6,471.17 amid Middle East geopolitical tensions and a spike in U.S. Treasury yields, with foreign investors net selling more than 3.5 trillion won (approximately $2.5 billion) in a single day. The 30-year U.S. Treasury yield surged to 5.33% intraday, its highest level since 2007, while Brent crude exceeded $91 per barrel.<\/p>\n
However, overnight action by the U.S. Treasury Department to calm Treasury yields eased market anxiety, and SK Hynix’s massive shareholder return announcement provided a buy signal across the semiconductor sector. Securities analysts have noted that the previous day’s plunge was driven more by a pullback following short-term gains rather than any deterioration in corporate fundamentals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea’s KOSPI index surged more than 6% on the 20th, breaking through the 6,880 level, with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[406,337,336,335,127,276,275,58727,850],"class_list":["post-125840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-alteogen","tag-korea-exchange","tag-kosdaq","tag-kospi","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-hynix","tag-u-s-treasury-department","tag-won-dollar-exchange-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}