South Korea’s Kospi index jumps more than 16% on a surge of chipmaking stocks

South Korea’s Kospi index jumped more than 16% on Friday, tracking Wall Street gains, as artificial intelligence-related stocks bounced back after losses this week.

US futures edged higher, and oil prices rose.

In early Asian trading, the Kospi rose 15.3 per cent to 6,447.10. Shares of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics surged 21.5 per cent, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix soared 25.6 per cent.


The Kospi index had plummeted more than 16 per cent on Tuesday and Wednesday on a sell-off of technology stocks in part over worries about an AI bubble and rising intensive competition from chipmaking rivals in China.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 also climbed 5 per cent in early Friday trading. Multinational investment holding company and OpenAI-investor SoftBank Group jumped 14.7 per cent, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron rose 9.3 per cent.

Oil prices traded higher on tensions between the US and Iran, and as the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil transport, remained largely closed. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 0.3 per cent to USD 87.14 per barrel. It was around USD 72 a barrel before the start of the Iran war in late February.

On Thursday, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 was up 1.7 per cent to 7,437.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.2 per cent to 52,208.06. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 2.8 per cent to 25,122.18.