Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rises 3.38%

SK hynix ADR surges 8.14%

Strong US jobs data seen as limited headwind for markets

The Kospi, Kosdaq and won-dollar exchange rate are displayed on a board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Friday. [Yonhap]
The Kospi, Kosdaq and won-dollar exchange rate are displayed on a board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Friday. [Yonhap]

The Kospi is expected to open sharply higher Monday, buoyed by OpenAI's launch of its new AI model "Astra" and the company's declaration that the age of artificial general intelligence has arrived. A broad rally in semiconductor stocks on Wall Street is also seen lifting investor sentiment.

The Kospi closed at 6,687.21 on Friday, up 107.73 points, or 1.64 percent, from the previous session, according to Korea Exchange.

On the main Kospi market, foreign and institutional investors returned to net buying together for the first time in six sessions, purchasing 503.4 billion won ($370 million) and 1.67 trillion won, respectively. Other corporations also net bought 1.57 trillion won, driven by share buybacks at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Retail investors were the sole net sellers, offloading 3.72 trillion won.

Overnight, all three major US indexes fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.51 percent and the S&P 500 fell 0.38 percent on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday (local time). The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also slipped 0.29 percent.

The declines came as rising US Treasury yields reflected concerns that a strong labor market could give the Federal Reserve grounds to raise its benchmark interest rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics at the US Department of Labor reported that nonfarm payrolls grew by 162,000 in August, far exceeding the market consensus of 53,000.

Even as broader US equities weakened, semiconductor stocks surged across the board. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 3.38 percent. SK hynix's American depositary receipts jumped 8.14 percent. Micron gained 6.10 percent, SanDisk 11.90 percent, Seagate 6.34 percent and Western Digital 5.86 percent.

The gains came after OpenAI launched "Astra," a new AI model rated at the "Critical" security level, and declared the dawn of the AGI era, stoking expectations for stronger demand and higher prices for high-capacity memory chips.

Market analysts said the stronger-than-expected US jobs data, while notable, was not enough to reverse the overall market mood.

"August nonfarm payrolls came in as a positive surprise, but as evidenced by the downside resilience of US equities — led by semiconductor stocks — and the resistance seen at the upper end of the 10-year Treasury yield, it does not appear to have been a negative development significant enough to shift the market's overall tone," said Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities.

Han added that the semiconductor rally on Wall Street last Friday suggests that persistent selling pressure on domestic and overseas chip stocks is increasingly being spent, and that it would be appropriate to set a base scenario in which the market's recovery momentum strengthens compared to last week, as investors digest Oracle's earnings and the August consumer price index.


moon@heraldcorp.com