Kospi Jumps 3.6% on Anthropic IPO Push; Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix Rally

The Kospi rose more than 3% in early trading on October 27, lifted by news that U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic is pushing ahead with an initial public offering.

As of 9:10 a.m., the benchmark Kospi was up 3.59% from the previous session at 5,665.59. Strength in AI-related shares that began on Wall Street spread to South Korean chipmakers, helping drive the index higher.

Anthropic earlier filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, formally launching the IPO process. Market speculation centers on the company raising $100 billion at a valuation of as much as $2 trillion. If completed at that size, the deal would be the largest IPO in U.S. stock market history.

Anthropic's listing push lifted sentiment across U.S. technology shares. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2.82%, while Nvidia gained 2.39%, AMD added 2.80%, Micron Technology climbed 2.98% and Broadcom advanced 2.33%.

Foreign investors were leading the rally in South Korea's stock market. At the same time, they were net buyers of 396 billion won ($286 million) on the Kospi, while retail and institutional investors were net sellers of 462 billion won ($334 million) and 10 billion won ($7.2 million), respectively.

Among large-cap stocks, Samsung Electronics rose 4.46% and SK Hynix gained 6.27%. SK Square surged 10.14% on expectations for a larger special dividend from SK Hynix, while SK also climbed more than 7%.

Buying also flowed into the Kosdaq market. As of the same time, the Kosdaq Index was up 2.77% at 747.35, rising in tandem with the Kospi.