After three days of heavy losses, South Korean tech stocks staged a strong recovery on Friday. Chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, in particular, drove the market higher, buoyed by strong results from Amazon and Microsoft and intervention by South Korea’s financial regulator.
The Kospi index closed nearly 18 percent higher, recouping a significant portion of its earlier losses, according to the BBC. The rebound followed a week in which investors sold off AI-related stocks en masse out of fear that the billions invested by major tech companies would be difficult to recoup.
Chipmakers in particular benefited from the improved sentiment. SK Hynix, a major supplier of memory chips to Nvidia, rose nearly 30 percent. Samsung Electronics gained about 28 percent. Both companies had actually lost significant market value earlier this week.
The mood shifted after Amazon and Microsoft reported better-than-expected quarterly results. Investors saw this as confirmation that the massive investments in AI infrastructure are, for the time being, supported by strong demand for cloud and AI services. Amazon and Microsoft shares rose by more than 9 percent and more than 15 percent, respectively, in U.S. after-hours trading on Thursday.
South Korean authorities also contributed to the recovery. They announced measures to curb this week’s exceptionally sharp sell-off. Details about those measures are still limited, but the action appears to have bolstered investor confidence.
The optimism was not limited to South Korea. Stock markets in Japan and Taiwan also benefited from the recovery in the chip sector.
Volatile market
The South Korean stock market has been exceptionally volatile this year. Due to the strong influx of retail investors, price swings have become larger than usual. The tech-heavy Kospi index has been halted several times this year via a so-called circuit breaker, a mechanism that temporarily suspends trading to limit panic selling.
Despite the sharp correction since its record high in mid-June, the KOSPI index is still more than 50 percent higher than at the end of 2025. This underscores just how strongly AI-related stocks have driven the South Korean stock market this year.