Kospi Opens 2% Higher Despite Overnight Weakness on Wall Street

Samsung Electronics up 3%, SK Hynix gains more than 4%

South Korea’s Kospi opened higher on Nov. 13, lifted by simultaneous gains in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

The Kospi opened at 5,452.41, up 109.68 points, or 2.05%, from the previous session. Although Wall Street fell overnight in the wake of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation, buying flowed into large-cap semiconductor shares in South Korea.

As of 9:10 a.m., the benchmark stood at 5,492.05, up 149.32 points, or 2.79%, from the previous close. On the main bourse, foreign investors were net buyers of 179.3 billion won, helping lift the index. Retail and institutional investors were net sellers of 190.7 billion won and 1 billion won, respectively.

The two largest stocks by market capitalization led the gains. Samsung Electronics rose 3.61% to 215,500 won, while SK Hynix climbed 4.70% to 1,313,000 won. Samsung Electro-Mechanics added 6.21%, while SK Square rose 3.29%, Hyundai Motor gained 2.06% and KB Financial Group advanced 1.19%.

Nvidia opened sharply lower overnight and later trimmed some of its losses to close down 4.34%. By contrast, AMD and Broadcom each rose more than 5%. Seo Sang-young, a researcher at Mirae Asset Securities, said the Korean market had already priced in some of the negative news in the previous session’s decline. He added that US stocks also narrowed their early losses, though pressure on foreign investor flows from rising US Treasury yields and higher oil prices remained.

The Kosdaq also regained the 700 level. It opened at 705.96, up 9.43 points, or 1.35%, from the previous session, and was trading at 713.48 as of 9:10 a.m., up 16.95 points, or 2.43%.