Overview
- The KOSPI opened to a sharp selloff on Thursday, July 2, falling more than 6 percent at the open and activating automatic circuit‑breaker pauses as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix suffered large intraday declines.
- Market coverage linked the rout to reports that OpenAI developed software that may sharply reduce AI inference compute needs, plus accounts that Meta is offloading data‑center capacity and that Apple has discussed using Chinese memory suppliers; those reports are reported but not confirmed by the companies.
- The index’s extreme moves were amplified by concentration and leverage: Samsung and SK Hynix make up roughly half of the KOSPI’s market value, foreign investors sold over $10 billion in June, and retail margin borrowing hit record levels that magnified forced selling.
- Some analysts kept near‑term bullish views and Morningstar raised valuation targets for the chip leaders, but they also warned that big memory supply additions over the next two years could lead to a deeper correction by 2029–2030.
- Trading recovered modestly the next day as bargain hunting lifted chip stocks, but investors will watch corporate earnings, U.S. macro data and any policy moves closely because those factors will determine whether this is a short correction or a longer reassessment of AI‑driven chip demand.