North Korea using foreign talent to help infiltrate US companies: Report

Multiple factors drove a correction in South Korean stocks: profit-taking by Samsung and SK Hynix, collective withdrawal of foreign capital, and amplified concerns about oversupply risks and fundamentals.

According to BlockBeats, on July 6th, based on Bitget market data, the South Korean stock market has been experiencing a continuous downward correction recently. On July 2nd, the KOSPI index once plummeted by nearly 8%, triggering a trading halt, with SK Hynix falling by over 14% and Samsung by over 9%. On July 3rd, it fell by over 3% in the morning session before rebounding sharply. Today, the South Korean stock market continued its downward trend, falling by over 3% at one point, driven by multiple factors: Samsung and SK Hynix have excessively high weightings, leading to concentrated profit-taking. Currently, the weighting of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two core AI memory stocks, in the KOSPI has risen to approximately 50%, meaning that fluctuations in the memory sector can cause significant volatility in the entire South Korean index. After a continuous surge in recent months, concentrated profit-taking has become the driving force behind the recent natural correction. US stock market correction sentiment spills over. In the global market, the recent collective correction in US semiconductor, memory chip, and optical communication sectors has triggered a global sell-off in technology stocks. Market concerns include the sustainability of AI capital expenditure and overvaluation. South Korean stocks are highly sensitive to sentiment in the US tech sector and are similarly affected by spillover effects from US market sentiment. The structural fragility of the South Korean market amplifies the decline. The assets of 2x leveraged products tracking Samsung and SK Hynix are enormous, far exceeding the average daily trading volume of the stocks themselves. Forced rebalancing during declines further fuels selling and exacerbates the fall. The high leverage of retail investors combined with margin trading creates a chain reaction, causing frequent extreme volatility in the South Korean stock market. Foreign capital is fleeing South Korea. Recently, foreign investors in South Korea net sold 7.7 trillion won (approximately US$4.98 billion) worth of KOSPI shares on Monday, setting a record for the largest single-day sell-off. Combined with factors such as pressure on the won's exchange rate, this further undermines foreign investor confidence. Oversupply risks raise fundamental concerns. Samsung and SK Hynix plan massive investments in new memory chip factories, totaling tens of billions of dollars. The market worries that a significant increase in future capacity will put downward pressure on memory prices. Meanwhile, demand from major customers such as Nvidia for higher-stack HBM chips has slowed, shaking market confidence in the sustainability of the "AI supercycle."