SK Hynix's share price is displayed at the dealing room of Hana Bank's headquarters in Seoul on Friday. [Yonhap]
SK Hynix's share price is displayed at the dealing room of Hana Bank's headquarters in Seoul on Friday. [Yonhap]

The Kospi staged a sharp rebound of more than 13% in early trading Friday, recovering from three consecutive sessions of steep losses.

As of 9:15 a.m., the benchmark index stood at 6,320.82, up 13% from Thursday. It opened up 1.15% at 5,657.79 before surging past the 6,300 level.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led the advance, each jumping more than 20%. Samsung Electronics was trading up 21.01% at 250,500 won ($173), while SK Hynix climbed 22.69% to 1.622 million won.

The semiconductor rally was fueled by Microsoft's better-than-expected earnings released overnight on Wall Street, which lifted chip stocks broadly.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won's purchase of SK Hynix shares on Thursday also provided a boost.

Chey disclosed that he bought 3,620 shares of SK Hynix common stock through open-market purchases on Thursday. The move signaled his commitment to responsible management amid severe volatility in domestic markets centered on semiconductor stocks.

Most large-cap stocks were also in positive territory. SK Square rose 25.16%, Samsung Electro-Mechanics gained 28.56%, Hyundai Motor advanced 7.55% and Samsung Life climbed 13.64%.

Foreign investors were net buyers of 3.49 trillion won worth of shares, while retail investors and institutions were net sellers of 3.07 trillion won and 325.2 billion won, respectively.

The Kosdaq rose 7.31% to 691.89 at the same time, with top market-cap stocks all in the green — including Alteogen, Ecopro, Ecopro BM, Rainbow Robotics and Jusung Engineering.

Foreign investors and institutions were net buyers of 32.5 billion won and 53.6 billion won, respectively, on the Kosdaq, while retail investors were net sellers of 86.4 billion won.

The sharp gains triggered buy-side sidecar mechanisms on both the Kospi and Kosdaq markets in quick succession.

It was the 44th sidecar activation on the Kospi this year and the 28th on the Kosdaq.

Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said the downward pressure on markets throughout July had stemmed from concerns over AI companies' profitability and fears that the AI investment cycle was nearing its end, compounded by supply-demand instability. "However, Microsoft proved its profitability through strong Azure cloud growth — up 43% year-on-year — and solid cash flow," Han said. "It is also worth noting that Meta, while its share price plunged due to declining cash flow, still delivered solid results in its core advertising business."

Han added that the domestic market was rebounding on expectations of deleveraging relief in semiconductors, Amazon's after-hours share price surge of around 9% following an earnings surprise, and the Kospi 200 night-session futures hitting their upper limit.


jiyun@heraldcorp.com