Driven by a strong recovery in US tech stocks, South Korean chip giants SK hynix and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. both soared over 20% on Friday, marking their best single-day performances ever. This rally followed a more than 8% surge in the US-listed iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) overnight.
Strong quarterly earnings from Amazon and Microsoft reignited investor optimism around AI capital expenditure, lifting the entire US tech sector. In response, shares of SK hynix closed nearly 30% higher, while Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. ended the session up almost 27%, both setting new records for daily gains.
Other notable movers in South Korea included LG Innotek, which rose 21.23%, and Seoul Semiconductor, up 15%. Japan's chip sector also saw sharp increases: Advantest surged over 16%, Tokyo Electron added 6.24%, Disco climbed 12.74%, Lasertec jumped 12.76%, and Renesas Electronics closed 7.7% higher. SoftBank Group, which holds Arm and is a key AI bellwether, gained 13.8%. In Taiwan, TSMC shares rallied nearly 10%.
Earlier this week, the Asia-Pacific semiconductor sector experienced a severe selloff due to concerns over high AI valuations and intensifying competition from mainland Chinese memory chip makers. This broad-based rally marks a dramatic reversal in sentiment.
The catalyst was better-than-expected cloud business results from two major US tech companies, which drove capital back into the AI chip sector. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) surged over 8% in a single session. Amazon's second-quarter revenue surpassed analyst estimates, with strong cloud performance boosting its shares over 9% in after-hours trading. Microsoft rallied 16% during regular trading on Thursday after its Azure cloud computing growth exceeded expectations, reinforcing confidence in the resilience of AI infrastructure spending.
Andrew Jackson, equity strategy head at Autus Consulting, said Microsoft's strong earnings report sparked a broad risk-on rebound in the AI sector, reversing the recent downtrend in tech stocks. In a Friday research note, he highlighted that Azure's revenue significantly exceeded forecasts, while Microsoft's prudent management of capital spending eased investor concerns. The market, he noted, does not support unchecked spending on capacity expansion, a strategy that had previously been penalized by investors.
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