Japan and South Korea Stocks Open Stronger, KOSPI Rises Over 3%, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics Lead

TradingKey - In early Asian trading on July 23, Japanese and South Korean stock markets extended their rebound from the previous trading day, with both major indices opening higher. The KOSPI rose 3.41%, while the Nikkei 225 gained over 0.5%.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 3.41% in early trading, crossing the 7,000-point mark to temporarily stand at 7,029.46 points.

Source: TradingView

The semiconductor sector continued to lead the gains, with SK Hynix rising 5% and Samsung Electronics climbing 3.65%, reclaiming the level around 270,000 Korean won, as technology heavyweights showed strong performance.

Japanese stocks also maintained their gains, with the Nikkei 225 Index rising over 0.5% to temporarily stand at 66,467.88 points. Among individual stocks, Kioxia rose 3.41% to 66,520 yen, while SoftBank Group gained 1.6% to 5,792 yen, showing an overall strong performance driven by technology stocks.

On the news front, Google ( GOOGL) raised its full-year capital expenditure forecast to $195 billion to $205 billion, and plans to further expand the scale of its third-party computing resource usage in the third quarter, indicating that investment in AI infrastructure continues to ramp up.

This news drove related stocks higher in after-hours trading, with CoreWeave ( CRWV) rising 2.9%, and Micron Technology ( MU) gaining 2.48%, which further boosted market sentiment for Asian semiconductor and AI-related stocks.