KOSPI Briefly Tops 7,000 as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Extend Rally

South Korea's stock market opened Friday with fresh momentum, as the KOSPI index jumped roughly 2.7% at the open and briefly broke through the closely watched 7,000-point level for the first time in 15 trading sessions. The advance extended a rally that had already pushed the benchmark into technical bull-market territory a day earlier, after it climbed about 22% from its late-July low.

By mid-morning local time, the KOSPI was trading around 6,901, still up more than 1% on the day even after paring some of its early gains. The rally has been driven by three main forces: renewed strength in US technology and semiconductor shares, softer-than-expected American wholesale inflation data that eased worries about the Federal Reserve's rate path, and fresh foreign buying in Korea's AI-linked chipmakers.

Samsung Electronics, Korea's most valuable listed company, rose close to 1% in the session, supported by growing optimism that global demand for memory chips will keep strengthening as cloud providers and tech firms pour money into AI infrastructure. SK Hynix outperformed its larger domestic rival, rallying more than 2% and touching gains above 5% in early trading, as investors bet heavily on the company's high-bandwidth memory business, a key component in advanced AI computing hardware.

The rebound in Korea's chip sector has become the centerpiece of the broader market recovery following a sharp correction in July. Analysts note that international investors have been the main buyers driving the index higher this week, even as domestic retail traders and local institutions have chosen to lock in profits after the recent run-up, creating a notable tug-of-war beneath the market's surface.

Not every corner of the market shared in the enthusiasm. The smaller-cap KOSDAQ index underperformed, slipping around 0.7% as profit-taking in tech names weighed more heavily on that board than on the large-cap-dominated KOSPI. Elsewhere, automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia stood out among the day's biggest gainers, rising as much as 6-7% and roughly 3%, respectively, alongside gains in chip-related suppliers such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics.

The session underscores how quickly sentiment in Seoul has shifted since the July downturn, with global chip demand and US monetary policy expectations now firmly back in the driver's seat for Korean equities. Whether the rally can be sustained will likely depend on how durable the current wave of AI-linked spending proves to be, and on upcoming signals from the Fed.