SK Hynix Payout Fuels 5.7% Surge in South Korean Markets

The market momentum centered on the nation's two largest tech giants, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which together command nearly half of the Kospi's total market value. Shares in both companies climbed nearly 8% as investors recalibrated their expectations for the memory-chip sector. This performance followed SK Hynix’s report of record third-quarter revenue, which, despite missing net profit estimates, signaled robust industrial appetite for high-end hardware.

Market confidence was further bolstered by broader developments in the AI sector, specifically the public IPO filing from Claude developer Anthropic. Josh Gilbert, an analyst at eToro, noted that the earnings data helps alleviate growing anxiety that capital expenditure on artificial intelligence had reached a saturation point. With memory demand tied directly to the increasing complexity of large language models, the data suggests that the sector’s growth trajectory remains steep rather than exhausted.