The KOSPI fell to the 7,600 level amid a shock triggered by Meta. Meta's move into the cloud business cooled semiconductor investor sentiment in the United States, and sell orders poured in around chip stocks in Korea as well. In particular, foreign investors net-sold more than 5 trillion won on the KOSPI that day, dragging the index lower. On Tuesday, the KOSPI closed at 7648.09, down 655.32 points, or 7.89%, from the previous session. The decline was steep enough to trigger a sell-side sidecar early in the session as KOSPI 200 futures plunged. The KOSPI briefly recovered the 8,000 level during the day but extended its losses in the afternoon. Foreign investors sold 5.1538 trillion won on the KOSPI that day, pulling down the index. Institutions also net-sold 464.3 billion won. Individuals, by contrast, bought 5.4358 trillion won, absorbing the selling from foreign investors and institutions. The day's plunge was ignited by the shock from the New York stock market overnight. Meta stirred market skepticism about AI infrastructure investment by announcing its entry into the cloud leasing business using surplus computing resources. Micron and SanDisk each closed down 10%. As a result, semiconductor stocks including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix showed sharp declines. Samsung Electronics closed at 286,000 won, down 9.06%, and SK hynix closed at 2,187,000 won, down 14.57%. The same day, IBK Investment & Securities sharply raised its target price for SK hynix to 4 million won, and NH Investment & Securities also raised its target price from 3.2 million won to 4.1 million won. Despite the favorable reports from brokerages, they failed to stem the plunge in semiconductor stocks. Most of the KOSPI's top market-cap stocks closed lower. Shares of SK Square, SK hynix's largest shareholder, fell 13.2%, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics dropped 12.65%. Among the top 10 stocks, only LG Energy Solution and Samsung Biologics rose. The KOSDAQ could not avoid the sharp decline either. The KOSDAQ closed at 866.72, down 62.63 points, or 6.74%, from the previous session. Foreign investors and institutions net-sold 196 billion won and 357.5 billion won, respectively, while individuals net-bought 536 billion won. A sell-side sidecar was triggered at 12:47 p.m. that afternoon. Lee Kyoung-min, a researcher at Daishin Securities, said, "Concerns spread that supply expansion by Chinese memory makers could lead to an easing of memory bottlenecks and a slowdown in price increases, which acted as downward pressure across the semiconductor sector." He added, "However, whether this actually leads to a slowdown in memory demand has not yet been confirmed, and it is necessary to examine the medium- to long-term demand and profitability of semiconductors through Samsung Electronics' preliminary earnings announcement scheduled for the 7th of this month."   (ICE SEOUL)

Fonte notizia: Seoul Economic Daily