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Samsung, Nvidia lift S Korean stocks 8.4%
South Korean stocks jumped on May 21, with the KOSPI rising 8.42% to 7,815.59 in Seoul.
The rally came after Samsung Electronics reached a tentative wage deal that helped avert a strike, while strong earnings from Nvidia boosted chip and robotics shares.
Program trading in KOSPI 200 futures was paused for five minutes after futures stayed above 5% for more than a minute.
Institutions bought a net 2.9 trillion won (US$1.91 billion) and foreign investors sold a net 233.1 billion won (US$154 million).
Samsung rose 8.51%, SK hynix gained 11.17%, Hyundai Mobis climbed 25.23%, LG Electronics added 29.83%, Hyundai Motor rose 12.5%, and Kia gained 12.38%.
The won closed at 1,506.1 against the US dollar, up 0.7 won (US$0.0005) from the previous session.
🔗 Source: Yonhap
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
The rally ran on heavy borrowing and relief over averted disruption
- The KOSPI’s one-day jump landed in a market swinging hard 1.
- Retail investors added fuel through borrowing, pushing margin loans to a record 36.4 trillion won (US$24 billion) 2.
- Samsung’s tentative wage deal did more than settle a pay dispute. It headed off a planned strike after the union asked for 15% of pre-tax operating profit as a mandatory bonus pool 1.
- An earlier half-day walkout cut Samsung’s memory chip output 18.4% and foundry output 58.1%. A full strike risked disrupting chip supply chains worldwide 2.
‘Physical AI’ is changing how Korea’s industrial groups are valued
- Sharp gains in Hyundai and LG shares came as investors priced in a shift toward “physical AI,” which applies AI to robots and machines in the real world beyond their legacy industrial lines.
- Hyundai Motor Group plans yearly capacity for 30,000 robots by 2028. It also said it would place about 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots, human-shaped robots developed by Boston Dynamics, in its factories from 2028 3.
- That push lines up with Hyundai Motor Group’s pledge to invest 125.2 trillion won (US$86.7 billion) in Korea through 2030 3.
- LG Electronics is turning all 29 global factories into AI-powered smart sites with Nvidia’s digital twin technology, which creates virtual copies of real factories to test and improve operations 2.
