South Korea's KOSPI Surges Over 14% in a Single Day as SK Hynix Rebounds Alongside U.S. Semiconductor Stocks
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After U.S. semiconductor stocks bounced 8.2% in one session, Korea's KOSPI followed with a 14%+ surge on Friday and SK Hynix jumped 16% in pre-market — but whether the deleveraging that erased 27% in three days has truly run its course remains the key question.
Why did U.S. chip stocks suddenly bounce?
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 8.2% on Thursday, snapping a five-session losing streak. This means → the post-Fed panic sell-off lasted only one day before money rushed back in.
Memory stocks led: Micron gained 18%, Western Digital 26%, SK Hynix 17%. The Roundhill DRAM ETF surged 17% in a single session.
In plain terms = the SOX had dropped roughly 21% in July — the worst monthly slide since 2008. Thursday's bounce looks more like a technical snap-back from oversold levels than a trend reversal.
How big was Korea's follow-through, and what does the chairman's buy signal?
The KOSPI jumped over 14% on Friday. SK Hynix rose as much as 16% in Nextrade pre-market trading; Samsung Electronics gained up to 12%.
SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won purchased 3,620 shares of SK Hynix on the open market — roughly ₩4.8 billion (about $3.2 million) — his first-ever personal investment in the company. This means → this was not routine accumulation but a rare show-of-confidence signal after the stock lost nearly a third of its value in three days.
NH Investment Securities' Shawn Oh noted that the accelerated sell-off in AI tech stocks, driven by deleveraging, position-cutting, and liquidation, "may be stabilizing." In plain terms = the selling was a liquidity stampede, not a fundamental breakdown — once the stampede ended, the rebound followed.
What do the Microsoft and Amazon earnings tell us?
Microsoft was the day's standout: shares surged 15.5%, adding roughly $450 billion in market cap — the largest single-day gain for any stock in history.
Azure revenue grew 43% year-over-year at constant currency, beating the 40.2% consensus; full-year Azure revenue for fiscal 2026 topped $100 billion for the first time.
Amazon's AWS posted Q2 revenue of $42.2 billion, up 37% year-over-year, well above the roughly 31% expected — the fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating growth. This means → both cloud giants simultaneously validated that AI infrastructure demand is still accelerating, not slowing.
But Amazon's Q3 revenue guidance of $197–202 billion came in below the Street's $204.1 billion estimate — good news and bad news coexist.
Apple beat expectations — so why did it drop after hours?
Apple posted fiscal Q3 revenue up 16.4% to $109.42 billion, slightly above consensus. iPhone sales rose 21.7% to $54.25 billion, a Q3 record.
But Greater China revenue came in at $18.82 billion, below the expected $19.67 billion; Services revenue of $30.74 billion also missed the $31.22 billion estimate. Apple fell about 4% after hours.
This reflects a shift in how the market prices Apple: beating on the headline is no longer enough — both the China and Services growth engines must hit their marks, or the stock gets punished.
How far has the AI investment arms race gone?
Meta disclosed in regulatory filings that it has committed nearly $700 billion through long- and short-term agreements for AI data centers and cloud computing. Non-cancellable contract commitments total $349.3 billion, with another $347 billion in lease obligations not yet commenced; $68 billion was added in July alone.
Nexus Data Centers, partnering with Anthropic, is in advanced talks to borrow $15 billion to build a large data-center campus and a 1.6 GW natural-gas power plant in Hubbard, Texas. Google has guaranteed Anthropic's multi-billion-dollar lease and power-payment obligations; Morgan Stanley is leading the syndicated loan.
In plain terms = AI infrastructure spending is no longer a question of "whether to invest" — the giants are locking in capacity with hundreds of billions in long-term contracts, providing tangible demand support for upstream memory and semiconductors.
What macro risks are still hanging overhead?
The dollar index fell 1.01% to 99.868. The yen surged by its largest single-day amount in over two years; Nikkei reported that Japanese authorities intervened again to support the currency.
TS Lombard economist Rory Green noted that previous interventions were each followed by a Bank of Japan rate hike — most recently in mid-2024. This means → yen intervention is not just a currency event; it may signal a BOJ policy shift ahead.
The 30-year U.S. Treasury yield briefly hit its highest level since 2007, settling around 5.21% on Thursday. Danske Bank's Jens Peter Sorensen warned that if inflation fails to slow, long-end yields face further upside risk.
In plain terms = the semiconductor bounce is welcome news, but the surging yen and elevated long-end rates loom like two rocks overhead — whether deleveraging pressure has truly cleared remains the core test for any sustained recovery.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.