TradingKey - Japanese and South Korean Stock Markets Diverge at the Open! Kospi Plunges Below 6,900 Points, Nikkei Rebounds 0.6%, Samsung and SK Hynix Suffer Opening Bloodbath.

On Friday morning Asian time (August 28), major weighted markets in the Asia-Pacific region saw a sluggish start, with both major Japanese and South Korean stock markets opening lower. Among them, the South Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) opened lower and continued to decline, but the Nikkei 225 Index rebounded after opening lower, showing a sharp divergence between the two.

The KOSPI Index opened down 1.16%, falling below the 6,900 mark to temporarily trade at 6,831.99 points. Affected by the stalled rally in US chip stocks overnight, South Korean stock market's two heavyweights—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—both opened lower in early trading. SK Hynix fell 1.1% to temporarily trade at 1,711,000 KRW; Samsung Electronics fell 1.41% to temporarily trade at 262,500 KRW.

KOSPI Index Chart, Source: TradingView

The Nikkei 225 Index rose 0.61% after opening, temporarily trading at 66,533.52 points; however, the two main heavyweights showed mixed trends, with Kioxia falling 2.06% to temporarily trade at 51,420 JPY, while SoftBank received some buying support from the buzz around its massive acquisition of embodied AI and robotics company 1X Technologies, with its stock price rising 0.29% to temporarily trade at 5,215 JPY.

Although long-term demand for AI memory (HBM3e / HBM4) remains firm, short-term hot money chose to lock in profits at highs after Nvidia's earnings report turned out to be a sell-the-fact event. In addition, the KRW/USD exchange rate fluctuated around 1,380 KRW, and after heavily increasing positions earlier, foreign capital turned into net sellers in early trading today, weighing on the benchmark index.

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