South Korean stocks rallied for a second day on Wednesday as technology shares rebounded across Asia. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ jumped 37.49 points, or 5.62%, to close at 705.10, up from 667.61 on Tuesday, according to Korea Exchange figures reported by the Seoul Economic Daily and SBS. It was the index’s first close above 700 since Nov. 4, after a 4.48% gain on Tuesday.
The main KOSPI index rose 136.23 points, or 2.60%, to 5,375.36 after opening lower. Chipmakers led the way: SK Hynix rose 5.36% and Samsung Electronics gained 3.57%.
The rally came after U.S. cloud computing company CoreWeave reported a 168% jump in quarterly revenue. Korean financial outlet Bloomingbit tied the gains to CoreWeave’s results and expectations for Anthropic’s initial public offering. The gains came despite hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data on Tuesday, which fed talk of a larger Federal Reserve rate increase in December.
Foreign investors were net buyers on the KOSPI, while institutions led buying on the KOSDAQ, according to Korea Exchange data reported by Wikitree and JKN. A buy-side “sidecar,” which halts program buy orders for five minutes when KOSDAQ 150 futures jump sharply, was triggered on the KOSDAQ for a second straight session.
The rebound follows a steep slide. Over the past month, the KOSDAQ fell from 849.19 on Oct. 12 to 638.97 on Nov. 9, according to publicly reported closing prices. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 1.31% to 61,248.59, its third straight gain.
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