South Korean shares were on track to end a seven-week losing streak, with the benchmark Kospi rising 0.82% to a three-week high, supported by gains in AI-driven chip stocks and stronger U.S. technology shares.

Among individual names, SK Hynix and automakers advanced, while Samsung Electronics slipped. Foreign investors bought Korean stocks, and sentiment was further lifted by easing U.S. inflation — cooler U.S. price data typically shapes expectations for Federal Reserve rate decisions, a backdrop that has historically influenced foreign-investor flows into Asian markets. Foreign investors have long accounted for a large share of trading on the Korean market, so swings between their net selling and net buying often accompany turns in the index's direction.

The tech-heavy index marked its fifth consecutive session of gains, rising 9.4% over that period after losing nearly 31% during the previous seven weeks. Even after the rebound, the index remained well below its level before the slide began.

The Kospi, South Korea's main stock index, is heavily weighted toward technology and semiconductor companies. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics are the world's two largest memory chip makers and the index's two biggest constituents, and SK Hynix is a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips — stacked DRAM modules designed to sit alongside AI accelerators — which ties the index's performance closely to global demand for AI hardware. For a market this concentrated in memory chips, AI hardware demand and the U.S. inflation and rate outlook are the indicators market participants watch.

Source: Economic Times Markets