Japan and South Korea Stocks Plunge: KOSPI Index Triggers Circuit Breaker, Kioxia Tumbles 11%, Samsung, SK Hynix, and SoftBank Bleed Across the Board.

TradingKey - Japanese and South Korean stock markets fell across the board, with the KOSPI index plunging nearly 5%, the Nikkei 225 falling over 2%, Kioxia plummeting over 11%, and Samsung, SK Hynix, and SoftBank falling in tandem.

During the Asian trading session on July 7, Japanese and South Korean stock markets generally closed lower. Among them, the KOSPI index fell by as much as 8% intraday, triggering a circuit breaker, before rebounding slightly at the close to narrow its decline to 4.91%, ending at 7,656.32 points; the Nikkei 225 fell 2.12% to close at 68,256.91 points.

KOSPI Index Chart, Source: TradingView

In terms of individual stocks, heavyweight stocks fell across the board, with Kioxia leading the losses. Specifically, Samsung Electronics fell 6.92%, slipping below the 300,000 won mark to close at 296,000 won; SK Hynix fell 6.06% to close at 2,201,000 won; Kioxia plummeted 11.26% to close at 72,400 yen; SoftBank fell 3.48% to close at 5,771 yen.

Kioxia Stock Price Chart, Source: TradingView

Samsung delivered its strongest-ever single-quarter profit today, yet this was met with a market circuit breaker. This indicates that at the current stage, the market's anxiety over "whether AI computing infrastructure is overheating and whether chipmakers' capital expenditures are too large" has completely overwhelmed actual current earnings.

In addition, SK Hynix lowered its listing reference price from 2.555 million won to 2.425 million won, resulting in its fundraising scale shrinking by $1 billion, a move that dampened bullish market sentiment. According to Reuters, SK Hynix plans to gradually settle and transfer the massive $28 billion (approximately 43 trillion won) raised from the issuance of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) back to South Korea around July 15. This practice constitutes negative news of "cash-grabbing and equity dilution."