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Kospi rebounds to record highs, Samsung briefly breaks market cap record

Published: 04 Feb. 2026, 17:50 Updated: 04 Feb. 2026, 18:11

A screen in Hana Bank's trading room in central Seoul shows the Kospi closing at 5,371.10, up 1.57 percent, or 83.02 points, from the previous trading session, on Feb. 4. [YONHAP]

The Kospi closed above the 5,370 mark on Wednesday, setting new all-time intraday and closing highs on the back of net buying by institutional investors.

The Kospi index ended the session at 5,371.10, up 1.57 percent from the previous day. During the session, it climbed as high as 5,376.92, rewriting its intraday record after three trading days.

The index opened 0.52 percent lower at 5,260.71 before staging a rebound during the session.

Institutions alone posted net purchases worth 1.7829 trillion won, while foreign investors and individuals logged net sales of 940.1 billion won and 1.007 trillion won, respectively.

Samsung Electronics, which had fallen as much as the mid-2 percent range early in the session following overnight weakness in U.S. technology stocks, reversed course to close up 0.96 percent from the previous day.

Samsung Electronics’ share price also briefly pushed the company’s market capitalization above 1,000 trillion won ($688 million) for the first time during intraday trading, as stocks rose to an intraday high of 169,400 won during trading hours.

Samsung Electronics' share price is seen displayed on an electronic board inside Woori Bank's trading room in Jung District, central Seoul on Feb. 4. [YONHAP]

Samsung Electronics’ shares have been hitting record highs in recent sessions. The rally is widely seen as reflecting the company’s gains from surging global demand and prices for memory chips driven by a sharp increase in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure since the second half of last year, leveraging Samsung’s world-class semiconductor manufacturing capacity.

The company is also expected to regain market share in the next-generation HBM4 market after restoring its technological competitiveness in the high-bandwidth memory business, an area previously cited as a weakness.

On the back of these trends, Samsung Electronics posted a quarterly operating profit of 20 trillion won in the fourth quarter of last year, the first time a Korean company has reached that level, setting a new record. Some forecasts see its operating profit exceeding 130 trillion won this year.

A screen in Hana Bank's trading room in central Seoul shows the Kospi closing at 5,371.10, up 1.57 percent, or 83.02 points, from the previous trading session, on Feb. 4. [YONHAP]

SK hynix narrowed its losses to finish down 0.77 percent from the previous day. Among the top 10 Kospi stocks by market capitalization, Doosan Enerbility rose 5.81 percent, SK Square gained 4.21 percent and LG Energy Solution added 2.94 percent.

Hyundai Motor also climbed 2.54 percent, Samsung Biologics rose 0.57 percent, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries edged up 0.17 percent and Hanwha Aerospace advanced 1.92 percent.

The Kosdaq index closed at 1,149.43, up 0.45 percent from the previous session. Foreign investors and institutions posted net sales of 53.9 billion won and 144.4 billion won respectively, while individuals recorded net purchases of 234.5 billion won.

The won weakened by 4.8 won from the previous session to trade at 1,450.2 against the dollar at 3:30 p.m.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]