Korean Stocks Rebound 8% in a Single Day: Samsung Up 9%, SK Hynix Surges Over 14%
Claire Weston
KOSPI surged as much as 8% Tuesday afternoon, led by memory-chip heavyweights — Samsung Electronics gained 9.1% and SK Hynix over 14%, signaling that the market's long-term AI thesis survived the sell-off intact.
How bad was Monday's crash?
KOSPI had fallen for three straight sessions, dropping roughly 15% from its all-time high.
Monday's rout was the worst: the index closed down 8.29%, severe enough to trigger a circuit breaker mid-session.
This means → the sell-off was not a routine pullback but a short-term panic event.
What role did leveraged ETFs play?
Bloomberg reported that leveraged ETFs — funds that use borrowed money to amplify gains and losses — magnified the decline.
Some of these products showed inverse deviations as large as 40% due to their high-leverage design.
In plain terms = when the market drops 1%, these products can drop 2% or more, triggering further forced selling and creating a stampede effect.
Why did chip stocks lead the rebound?
Samsung Electronics rose as much as 9.1% intraday; SK Hynix surged over 14%. Both are memory-chip leaders.
Samsung Securities analyst Lee Jongwook said: "Volatility has risen sharply, but this stems from changes in market structure, not a shift in the cycle's direction."
This means → analysts view the crash as a short-term structural blow-up driven by leverage and ETF mechanics — AI-driven chip demand itself has not changed.
What does SK Hynix's factory push signal?
SK Hynix is bringing additional equipment into its Cheongju P&T6 plant to prepare for HBM4 — the sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory built specifically for next-gen AI chips.
The facility is expected to begin mass production in Q1 next year, operating alongside the Cheongju M15X DRAM fab.
This reflects a key disconnect: even as share prices swing wildly, chipmakers' capital-spending timelines have not slowed — the industry is still accelerating capacity for AI demand.
What did Jensen Huang and the broader Asia-Pacific market say?
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, asked about the recent sell-off at a Monday press event, responded: "The future of AI is incredibly bright — we are just getting started."
Asia-Pacific markets stabilized on June 9: the MSCI Asia-Pacific index rose 0.7%; Japan's Nikkei 225 gained over 1% intraday, with Korea leading the region.
U.S. markets provided overnight support: the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq gained 0.86%, partially recovering the prior week's tech sell-off.
The future of AI is incredibly bright — we are just getting started. So whatever happens in the stock market, you should feel very good because you can buy at a discount.
Jensen Huang
CEO, Nvidia
(Monday press event, responding to the recent sell-off)
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.