Japan and South Korea Stocks Rally Strongly: South Korea Kospi Surges Over 12%, Nikkei 225 Jumps 4%

TradingKey - On March 5, Tokyo and Seoul stock markets collectively opened higher and moved upward, staging a strong rebound.

The Nikkei 225 index opened up 1.8%, with intraday gains expanding to nearly 4%, rebounding by more than 2,100 points from the previous session's low to reach the 56,300 range, nearly recouping all the losses from March 4.

South Korea's KOSPI opened with a 3.1% gain, which later widened to 12%. Following a sharp surge in stock index futures, the Korea Exchange briefly suspended program trading for the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets.

Samsung Electronics surged 13%, and SK Hynix rose by 15%.

On March 4, the KOSPI suffered its most severe single-day session in history, closing down over 12% and triggering a circuit breaker that suspended trading for 20 minutes when intraday losses reached 8%; coupled with a drop of more than 7% the previous day, the two-day cumulative decline exceeded 20%, erasing all gains from February and marking the largest two-day drop since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Japanese market was also under pressure, as the Nikkei 225 index slumped 3.61% on March 4 to close at 54,245.54, a nearly one-month low; intraday losses briefly exceeded 4%, breaking below the 54,000 psychological level.

In the three trading cycles following military actions by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, market panic continued to simmer and pessimistic expectations were overstated, which instead attracted short-term bottom-fishing capital targeting an oversold rebound.