![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781312336_924_rcv.YNA.20260612.PYH2026061218880001300_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Foreign")
A board at Hana Bank’s dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, displays the Kospi on the 12th. Yonhap News<\/p>\nA board at Hana Bank’s dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, displays the Kospi on the 12th. Yonhap News<\/p>\n
Foreign investors, who turned net buyers for the first time in about a month, pressed the buy button mainly on Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS). The shift is attributed to recovering investment sentiment as news emerged that the signing of a war-ending memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran is imminent.<\/p>\n
According to the Korea Exchange, foreign investors net purchased 2.1351 trillion won on the KOSPI market Friday. It marked the first time in 25 trading sessions that foreign investors recorded net buying on the KOSPI since the 6th of last month. Institutional investors also net purchased 2.3207 trillion won, sending the KOSPI to close at 8,123.62, up 359.67 points, or 4.63%, from the previous session’s close.<\/p>\n
The stock that foreign investors net purchased the most that day was SK hynix, totaling 1.2882 trillion won. Foreign investors had net purchased SK hynix the previous day for the first time in 24 trading sessions since the 6th of last month. As a result, the foreign ownership ratio of SK hynix, which had reached 53.23% on the 6th of last month, fell to 51.05% as of the 10th, the lowest of the year.<\/p>\n
Following SK hynix, foreign investors net purchased 882.9 billion won worth of Samsung Electronics. Foreign investors had sold Samsung Electronics for 10 consecutive trading sessions from the 27th of last month before turning net buyers the previous day and continuing net buying for two straight days. The foreign ownership ratio of Samsung Electronics also hit a yearly low of 47.58% on the 11th.<\/p>\n
The biggest incentive for foreign investors’ return to the KOSPI market is attributed to a recovery in risk appetite following the easing of geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday, “We just reached a great agreement regarding the war with Iran, and now only the final paperwork remains.” He added, “We will receive the documents within the next few days and hold a signing ceremony, which will probably be held in Europe.”<\/p>\n
Samsung Securities said in a report, “If an agreement is reached between the United States and Iran, global stock markets will maintain their upward trend, and the European market, which has relatively underperformed, is expected to rise.” It forecast, “The slowdown in expected inflation due to falling oil prices will lead to a downward stabilization of government bond yields in major countries and a shift toward a weaker dollar.”<\/p>\n
“Semiconductor Super Cycle Just Beginning”<\/p>\n
The outlook for the KOSPI market remains optimistic. Nomura, a global investment bank that raised its KOSPI target to 10,000-11,000 points late last month, diagnosed that the semiconductor super cycle is still in its early stages. Chung Chang-won, co-head of Nomura’s Asia Research, said this at the “2026 Korea Economy and Stock Market Media Briefing” held at the Seoul Finance Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, Friday. “What’s important is valuation,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This year, monthly memory sales have been rising vertically,” Chung stressed. “This is a pattern never seen before in the past.” He emphasized, “Considering this, this semiconductor super cycle has only just begun.” Chung also expressed expectations, saying, “Memory demand driven by AI is expected to grow 10,000 to 20,000 times over five years,” adding, “We are heading into a completely new world never heard of before.”<\/p>\n
Nomura Securities raised its KOSPI target to 10,000-11,000 on the 20th of last month. It presented target prices of 590,000 won and 5 million won for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, respectively.<\/p>\n
The fate of Samsung Electronics’ 2-nanometer chip, and why it hinges on Google’s AI chip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A board at Hana Bank’s dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, displays the Kospi on the 12th. Yonhap News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[896,341,335,15628,276,731,241,275,29441],"class_list":["post-51363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-foreign-investors","tag-korea-stock-market","tag-kospi","tag-nomura","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-semiconductor-super-cycle","tag-sk","tag-sk-hynix","tag-us-iran-agreement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51363","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=51363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}