Kospi Falls Below 6,000, Nikkei 225 Rises for Fourth Day; SK Hynix and SoftBank Gain Nearly 2% as Samsung Electronics Bucks Trend to Drop Over 4%

TradingKey - Japan Outperforms Korea Amid High-Level Divergence; Samsung Plunges 4% on 'Sell the News', KOSPI Loses 6,000 Level while Nikkei Extends Rally to Four Days.

During Asian trading hours on October 29, after two consecutive days of sharp gains, Japanese and South Korean stock markets exhibited a distinct pattern of 'Japan outperforming Korea amid high-level divergence.' South Korea's KOSPI Index was suppressed by profit-taking triggered by Samsung Electronics' financial results and outlook, losing the 6,000-point mark to close down 1.24% at 5,937.66 points.

Market leader Samsung Electronics reversed earlier gains to close down 4.13%, losing the 240,000 level to close at 232,000 South Korean won; SK Hynix closed up 2.22%, maintaining above 1.5 million at 1,520,000 South Korean won.

KOSPI Index chart, Source: TradingView

The Nikkei 225 Index rose for a fourth consecutive trading day, gaining 1.1% to close at 64,659.25 points; two major weighted stocks both rose more than 1%, with Kioxia up 1.15% to close at 14,505 yen, and SoftBank rising 1.77% to close at 4,765 yen.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) kept interest rates unchanged at 3.75%–4.00% at its October FOMC meeting, but two hawkish dissenting votes in the statement prompted global macro capital to temporarily turn cautious, capping stock market gains.

In addition, Samsung Electronics' earnings call triggered a 'sell the news' reaction. Although Samsung's revenue remained high, market concerns over the profitability of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) capacity and the speed of narrowing foundry losses led to concentrated selling by foreign and domestic institutional investors, pulling down the overall South Korean equity market.