Employees work at the dealing room of Hana Bank in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. The Kospi closed up 427.58 points, or 6.24 percent, at 7,284.41. [Yonhap]
Employees work at the dealing room of Hana Bank in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. The Kospi closed up 427.58 points, or 6.24 percent, at 7,284.41. [Yonhap]

The Kospi reclaimed the 7,200 level on Wednesday, buoyed by a broad rally in AI semiconductor stocks on US markets and a surge of more than 27 percent in SK hynix's American depositary receipts.

According to Korea Exchange, the Kospi closed up 427.58 points, or 6.24 percent, at 7,284.41. It was the first time in three trading sessions that the index had closed above 7,000, last doing so on Friday.

The index opened up 226.08 points, or 3.30 percent, at 7,082.91 and extended its gains through the session.

Buy-side sidecar circuit breakers were triggered on both the Kospi and Kosdaq markets in early trading.

On the Kospi market, foreign and institutional investors net-bought 2.32 trillion won ($1.56 billion) and 182.3 billion won, respectively, driving the index higher. Individual investors were the sole net sellers, offloading 2.47 trillion won.

Large-cap semiconductor stocks led the rebound. Samsung Electronics closed up 6.27 percent from the previous session.

SK hynix surged 8.83 percent to close at 2.08 million won, recovering the 2 million won threshold for the first time in three trading sessions. The gain was partly attributed to expectations that the gap between the domestic share price and its ADR would narrow following the ADR's sharp rise. SK hynix's ADR soared 27.29 percent on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

Barclays set a price target of $330 for SK hynix's ADR, forecasting a prolonged memory chip supply shortage. The global investment bank projected the shortage would deepen further in 2027 and remain largely unresolved through 2028.

Among other top stocks by market capitalization, SK Square jumped 16.18 percent, Samsung Electro-Mechanics rose 12.14 percent and Samsung Life gained 6.46 percent.

Hanmi Semiconductor hit the daily upper limit, closing up 29.88 percent at 269,500 won, on the back of strong second-quarter earnings. The company disclosed Tuesday that its second-quarter consolidated operating profit reached 130.3 billion won, up 51 percent from a year earlier and up 1,441 percent quarter-on-quarter.

The Kosdaq opened up 21.73 points, or 2.77 percent, at 805.71 and closed up 5.80 percent at 829.43.

On the Kosdaq market, foreign and individual investors net-bought 23 billion won and 108.5 billion won, respectively. Individual investors net-sold 140.7 billion won.

Among top Kosdaq stocks by market capitalization, Jusung Engineering rose 8.77 percent, Ecopro gained 9.23 percent and Simtec climbed 12.59 percent.


moon@heraldcorp.com