TradingKey - On August 10, Japanese and South Korean stock markets closed higher. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics edged lower, Kioxia rose 0.59%, and SoftBank fell by over 1%.
The Nikkei 225 Index closed up 2.08% at 66,970.22 points, while the South Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 0.65% to close at 6,299.66 points.
South Korea's KOSPI index rose by more than 2% at one point during morning trading, and the junior board index KOSDAQ even temporarily triggered the Sidecar mechanism, prompting the Korea Exchange to suspend program buy orders. Subsequently, the KOSPI's gains gradually pared, turning down by as much as 0.42% in the afternoon to hit a low of 6,232 points, before recovering its losses to end the day higher.
Source: TradingView
In terms of individual stocks, SK Hynix closed down 0.14% at 1,420,000 won (approximately $1,001), while Samsung Electronics fell 0.43% to close at 230,000 won.
Kioxia rose 0.59% to 48,010 yen (approximately $303), and SoftBank Group fell 1.22% to 5,484 yen.
According to South Korean media reports, SK Hynix is considering launching a shareholder return plan worth approximately 100 trillion won, of which share buybacks could reach around 40 trillion won, representing over 2% of the company's total outstanding shares. If implemented, the scale of this plan would be significantly higher than the company's previous shareholder return levels.
By comparison, SK Hynix's combined cash dividends and share cancellations last year totaled approximately 14.3 trillion won. The substantial expansion of this potential buyback scale suggests the company could further enhance its capital returns, and is also expected to improve investor expectations regarding the company's valuation and long-term holding value.
Meanwhile, the overall rebound in Japanese and South Korean stock markets was also driven by the strength of U.S. equities last week. The latest U.S. non-farm payrolls data fell short of market expectations, reinforcing investors' bets on further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, with all three major U.S. stock indexes recording significant gains last week.
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