A mid-session reversal
The Seoul stock exchange closed Friday's session in negative territory, with the Kospi down 52.20 points, or 0.98%, at 5,290.53. According to The Korea Herald, the index had opened up 2.05% and had reached a high of 5,504.44 points before turning negative around 12:35. Volumes were subdued: 237.3 million shares traded for a value of 16 trillion won, about $11.9 billion, with 450 stocks advancing versus 418 declining.
The correction was driven by foreign investors' selling, as they net sold 550.5 billion won. Institutions bought 2.3 billion won worth of stocks and retail investors 17.2 billion. Lee Kyoung-min of Daishin Securities explained that the index had started higher but then fell precisely because of foreign selling, and that, in the absence of significant negative factors, growing uncertainties related to artificial intelligence were mainly weighing on the market.
Huang's resignation and the effect on technology stocks
At the root of the change in direction is the exit of Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive and a central figure in the recent artificial intelligence boom. The news also helped push the main Wall Street indexes to close lower in the previous session. In Seoul, bellwether Samsung Electronics fell 0.96% to 206,000 won, while chipmaker SK hynix retreated 3.03% to 1.2 million won.
The losses also involved Samsung Electro-Mechanics, a Samsung Electronics subsidiary active in electronic components, down 3.5% to 855,000 won. The Naver portal, of which Nvidia is the third-largest shareholder, fell 5.12% to 172,500 won. The picture is made more uncertain by the wait for U.S. producer price data, cited as a possible clue for Federal Reserve monetary policy after the larger-than-expected rise in consumer inflation recorded at the start of the week.
Stocks bucking the trend and the won
Not all sectors followed the decline: Hyundai Motor gained 1.13% to 269,500 won and banking group KB Financial rose 4.74% to 159,000 won. On the opposite side, public company Korea Electric Power fell 9.79% to 27,650 won and instant noodle maker Nongshim 4.43% to 366,500 won. On the currency market, the won was quoted at 1,336.7 per dollar at 15:30, strengthening by 6 won from the previous session's close.
The material does not clarify the reasons for Huang's resignation or the actual consequences for business relationships. The article also mentions possible room for negotiation for Korean HBM memory manufacturers and a revision of the priorities of projects he promoted, but these are assessments by industry operators, not confirmed facts: they remain to be verified. The same applies to the note on Google, which reportedly passed security checks on maps in Korea by choosing Tmap as its local partner: it is a roundup headline, lacking the necessary details. The impact of Huang's exit on the AI ecosystem is, for now, a market perception rather than an established fact.
