TradingKey – Japanese and South Korean stock markets rebounded after a sharp decline, with the KOSPI and Nikkei 225 rising slightly. Kioxia led the gains, while Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and SoftBank followed suit.
During the Asian session on July 21, Japanese and South Korean stock markets showed a stark divergence at the open, with Japan opening higher and South Korea opening lower, though both posted modest gains. The Kospi Composite Index (KOSPI) extended Monday’s panic at the open, weakening briefly before recovering to rise 0.23%, temporarily trading at 6,531.07; Samsung Electronics rose 1.33% to 247,000 Korean won, while SK Hynix gained 0.85% to 1,779,000 Korean won.
KOSPI Index Chart, Source: TradingView
The Nikkei 225 Index saw a technical rebound from oversold conditions after a one-day holiday, opening lower but moving higher to rise 1.07%, temporarily trading at 64,826.16. Heavyweight stocks diverged, with Kioxia rising 3.38% to 53,870 yen, while SoftBank rose 0.74% to 5,464 yen.
The current extreme volatility in the Japanese and South Korean stock markets is, in essence, the result of soaring geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran in the Middle East intertwined with deleveraging in the global AI tech sector, keeping market capital extremely cautious. In the short term, whether Asia-Pacific tech stocks can truly halt their decline still depends heavily on the upcoming US corporate earnings reports and AI capital expenditure guidance this week, including Google ( GOOG ), Intel ( INTC ), IBM ( IBM ), Tesla ( TSLA ), among others.