Seoul shares open higher on bargain hunting after chip rout

Officials work at a dealing room at Hana Bank headquarters in central Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

Seoul shares opened sharply higher Wednesday as investors went bargain hunting following a nearly 11 percent dip the previous session on a loss in chipmaking stocks.

After opening 1.09 percent higher, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 134.24 points, or 2.23 percent, to 6,157.90 as of 9:15 a.m.

On Tuesday, the index plunged 10.84 percent to close at 6,023.66 amid woes over the future of large-scale investment into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and rising competition from China, which led to a heavy sell-off of AI-related stocks, such as chipmakers.

The rebound comes as a three-day slide in oil prices boosted risk sentiment despite concerns over AI spending.

Overnight, Wall Street ended mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.03 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite slipped 0.22 percent.

In Seoul, tech stocks led the gains.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics jumped 5.23 percent, while its rival SK hynix climbed 3.55 percent.

SK hynix posted a record net profit of 93.92 trillion won ($64.6 billion) for the April-June period, skyrocketing from 6.99 trillion won a year earlier.

Its operating profit also jumped over sixfold to 60.54 trillion won from 9.21 trillion won, driven by robust demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips and other memory products.

LG Electronics, the No. 1 home appliance maker, rose 1.9 percent, and shipping firm HMM climbed 1.75 percent.

Among decliners, leading battery maker LG Energy Solution fell 0.8 percent, and defense giant Hanwha Aerospace declined 1.94 percent.

The Korean won was trading at 1,457.10 won against the U.S. dollar as of 9:15 a.m., down 3 won from the close of stock trading the day before.