South Korea's Kospi index jumped 17.9% on Friday, recovering nearly all of the week's steep losses as chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rebounded alongside a rally on Wall Street. The gain partly reverses a three-day rout tied to fears over Chinese competition in memory chips, after strong earnings from Microsoft and Amazon revived confidence in AI spending.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index surged 17.9% on Friday to settle at 6,595.45 points, recovering nearly all of the week's steep losses. Heavyweight chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rallied in line with a sharp rebound on Wall Street.
Chip stocks rebound after the selloff
The gain partly reversed a three-day rout that had wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off the value of South Korea's stock market. The benchmark had also slumped nearly 17% over the previous three sessions, suffering one of its worst weekly selloffs after concerns over rising Chinese memory-chip competition triggered a rout in semiconductor stocks.
SK Hynix, a major supplier to Nvidia, gained almost 30%, while Samsung Electronics rose 28%. Both stocks had come under heavy selling earlier in the week as investors booked profits and questioned whether valuations reflected future earnings growth amid worries over AI infrastructure spending.
Samsung had still posted a record quarterly profit driven by its semiconductor business and forecast a favorable supply-demand environment for memory chips through at least 2027. SK Hynix likewise reported record revenue, though its quarterly profit fell short of market expectations.
Wall Street earnings spark the rally
The turnaround followed Amazon jumping more than 9% in after-hours trading on Thursday, while Microsoft gained more than 15%. Microsoft's results featured strong Azure cloud growth that eased concerns heavy AI spending was failing to generate adequate returns.
Surging chip stocks also helped push markets in Japan and Taiwan higher. South Korean regulators, meanwhile, announced measures aimed at curbing this week's sell-off.
Volatility persists despite the rebound
The Kospi has been halted multiple times this year under a circuit breaker mechanism designed to calm panic selling. Even so, the index remains more than 50% higher than it was at the end of 2025 after more than doubling in value this year.
Sources: BBC News, Investing.com
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