South Korean financial markets surged during early trading on November 10, triggering simultaneous program-trading purchase halts on both the Kospi and Kosdaq indices, Munhwa Ilbo reported.
As of 11:00 a.m. KST, the Kospi rose 203.14 points (4.05%) to 5221.99, following a start at 5247.22—up 228.37 points (4.55%)—and reaching a intraday high of 5300.92.
The market rally prompted the Korea Exchange to issue a program-trading purchase halt, known as a buy sidecar, at 9:06 a.m. on the Kospi. Approximately four minutes later, at 9:10 a.m., a buy sidecar was also triggered on the Kosdaq market amid a morning surge of up to 5% across domestic equities driven by recovering investor sentiment in U.S. semiconductor stocks.
The domestic stock market advance was heavily influenced by overnight gains in the United States, where the Nasdaq index rose 2.74% and the S&P 500 climbed 2.35% on November 9. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 6.85% as major U.S. chipmakers surged, including a 13.26% spike for AMD and a 6.25% gain for Micron.
Following the international semiconductor rebound, domestic market leaders Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix posted sharp increases. By 11:00 a.m., Samsung Electronics traded up 4.74% at 198,900 won, attempting to solidify a 200,000-won price level, while SK Hynix rose 5.81% to 1,202,000 won to reclaim the 1.2 million-won mark. Both major equities experienced 2 days of recovery following drops of 16% to 20% during the previous week.
Samsung Electronics maintained the highest count of small shareholders among listed companies, climbing 54.5% from 5,160,210 at the end of 2024 to 7,971,242 in the first half of 2024. SK Hynix recorded the second-largest minor shareholder count, expanding 4.4-fold from 780,867 to 3,461,526 over the same period.
