Seoul Stocks Rebound Over 2% as Chip Rout Eases, Fed Chair Comments Lift Sentiment
Seoul’s KOSPI closed up 2.05% at 5,668.05 on Oct. 16, snapping a seven-day losing streak, as chip shares recovered and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s comments on the U.S. economy and AI boosted risk appetite. The won rose to 1,331.4 per dollar.
Trade volume was light at 286.5 million shares worth 20 trillion won (US$15 billion). Winners far outnumbered losers 757 to 134. Investors went bargain hunting for large-cap technology shares, especially the country's top chipmakers, which had tumbled more than 10 percent in the previous session. Foreign investors were net buyers, according to Yonhap. One Yonhap report put their net purchases at 343.5 billion won, while another said they bought a net 341.3 billion won (US$256 million), snapping an eight-day selling streak. Retail and institutional investors offloaded a combined net 1.17 trillion won, according to one report.
The rebound followed comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at the 2026 IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok. Warsh voiced optimism about the U.S. economy and its strength, while refraining from signaling whether there will be a rate hike this month. His remarks revived appetite for risky assets, as a series of recent U.S. inflation data signaled prices are rising faster than expected.
Warsh also expressed optimism about artificial intelligence, describing it as "probably the most consequential change to the U.S. and the global economy in my lifetime." Seo Sang-yong, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, said it was meaningful that the Fed chair maintained a positive assessment of the AI industry's structural growth despite concerns over growing credit risks and funding burdens at such companies.
Comments from Nvidia chief Jensen Huang also helped ease concerns about the AI industry's financial health. On Thursday, Huang expressed optimism about Nvidia's partner cloud company CoreWeave, saying the firms' financial strength is "improving every day." CoreWeave shares slid more than 15 percent Wednesday U.S. time after a dramatic spike in its corporate bond yields to near 15 percent triggered investor anxiety over the company's heavy AI-related debt burden.
In Seoul, most market heavyweights closed higher. Samsung Electronics rose 2.62 percent to 215,500 won, while SK hynix edged up 0.79 percent to 1,272,000 won. Hyundai Motor added 5.58 percent to 312,000 won, Hanwha Aerospace advanced 7.77 percent to 888,000 won, and Celltrion climbed 6.53 percent to 194,000 won.
Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed higher. The yield on three-year Treasurys shed 1.3 basis points to 3.854 percent, and the return on benchmark five-year government bonds lost 1.9 points to 3.988 percent.