MONEY RADAR
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MARKET BRIEFING · KOREA

A day the index jumped 6.63%, yet only five stocks set 252-session highs: semiconductors alone carried the KOSPI back above 6,000.

October 28, 2026 · Read the Korean original

Major indices

  • KOSPI 6,012.44 +6.63%
  • KOSDAQ 771.28 +3.69%

Judging by the index alone this was a sweeping rebound, but it looks less like a push to new highs than a recovery of ground lost ten sessions ago. Only 5 stocks set fresh 252-session highs, while 29 marked new lows. The KOSPI closed at 6,012.44, back above 6,000 for the first time in 10 sessions, and the KOSDAQ rose 3.69% to 771.28, with 650 KOSPI and 1,213 KOSDAQ names advancing against 224 and 466 decliners.

What did the lifting was unmistakably semiconductors and the industries around them. Almost every semiconductor name in our sample rose, moving the industry in one direction, with robotics, telecom equipment and financials including insurers following. Haesung DS rose 19.82% as demand from artificial intelligence and high-performance computing spread to chip materials and components, according to Pinpoint News, and Rainbow Robotics gained 15.08% on news that Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee inspected the group's robotics organization, as reported by the Korea Economic Daily. Bio, cosmetics and displays, by contrast, barely kept pace with the index, showing that this rebound turned on a semiconductor axis rather than the whole market. Industry moves and individual names are laid out below under industry highlights.

Macro indicators signaled that risk had shifted toward equities. The 10-year government bond yield rose 7.6bp to 4.108% and the 3-year rose 4.1bp to 3.799% as money left bonds, while the won eased only 1.7 to 1,324.3 per dollar, staying in its lowest range of the past six months. Sidelined cash, however, has not come back. Investor deposits stood at 88.6826 trillion won as of October 26, down 3.414 trillion won from five sessions earlier, and credit-financing balances fell 84.4 billion won to 30.0677 trillion won. Even so, non-arbitrage program buying on the KOSPI came in at a net 526.4 billion won, so what lifted the index looked closer to institutional buying than to retail deposits.

The trigger was SK hynix. Quarterly results and a large shareholder-return plan landed before the open, sending both big chipmakers sharply higher, and news that Anthropic in the United States is pursuing an initial public offering carried buying into chip equipment names, as SBS Biz reported. Money settled in the same place. The leading industry was semiconductors, strongest in chip testing, and the 1Q K Semiconductor TOP2+ ETF rose 10.18% on the day, the strongest of any ETF. The highest StockRank name, by contrast, was the medical artificial intelligence firm Lunit, which hit its daily limit on October 26 on news of research collaboration with Summit Therapeutics and then eased 1.77% today. Korea's weight in the MSCI emerging markets index was 19.22% as of October 27, up 0.96 percentage points in a week but still 5.37 points below its June peak of 24.59%.

To separate what is what: index, industry and stock returns, macro indicators and market funding figures are confirmed numbers this site collects and calculates. The explanations behind the semiconductor surge, namely SK hynix's results and shareholder return, the Anthropic listing and the chairman's robotics visit, rest on press reports, and for names such as HD Hyundai Marine Engine that rose sharply without a reason we could confirm, only the move itself is stated. Investor deposits and credit financing are as of October 26, and crude oil data runs only through October 20, so oil is left out of this assessment.

Watchlist stocks by industry

Robotics & automation +8.89% · 5 of 5 up

Semiconductors +6.58% · 42 of 43 up

Telecom & networks +4.89% · 6 of 6 up

Financial services +4.02% · 19 of 20 up

Nuclear power +3.17% · 9 of 9 up

Display & OLED -0.12% · 2 of 3 up

Sources (Korean-language)

This market briefing was compiled by AI from this site's own price and filing data together with public news reports, and translated from the Korean original. Please check the sources below before relying on it.

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