Kospi Tops 8,400 Early on Hopes for US-Iran Peace Deal; Samsung Electronics Up 5%

The Kospi rose above 8,400 early on May 29 as hopes for an end to the conflict between the US and Iran boosted sentiment.

As of 9:07 a.m., the benchmark index was up 2.65% from the previous session at 8,402.26.

Overnight, all three major US stock indexes hit record highs on expectations that the war could end soon.

Axios reported that the US and Iran had completed negotiations on a memorandum of understanding to end the war and were awaiting final approval from President Donald Trump.

On the Kospi, institutional and retail investors were net buyers of 712.4 billion won and 497.7 billion won, respectively, at that time. Foreign investors were net sellers of 1.2978 trillion won.

Most of the Kospi's largest companies by market capitalization were higher. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rose 5.34% and 2.45%, respectively, to 315,500 won and 2.345 million won in early trading. Samsung Electronics said it had shipped the world's first 12-layer HBM4E samples that day.

LG CNS jumped 19.29%, LG Electronics climbed 14.63% and NAVER gained 8.29% after news that Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang will visit South Korea next week for meetings with LG and NAVER.

The Kosdaq fell for a third straight session. As of that time, the index was down 1.8% at 1,084.53. On the Kosdaq, foreign and institutional investors were net sellers of 211.2 billion won and 5.5 billion won, respectively. Retail investors were net buyers of 210.2 billion won.

The won opened stronger against the dollar. In Seoul foreign-exchange trading, the won-dollar rate opened at 1,495.5 won per dollar, down 7.3 won from the previous session.

Noh Jung-dong, Hankyung.com reporter, dong2@hankyung.com