South Korea's composite stock index erases losses, Hyundai's stock price soars.

Boosted by a rebound in Samsung Electronics and record-high gains in Hyundai Motor, the South Korean KOSPI index erased a previous drop of up to 2.4%. After Hyundai Motor announced a 90 trillion won investment in the construction of an artificial intelligence and robotics center, its stock price surged by 11%. Semiconductor stocks in South Korea soared by up to 19%, following reports in local media that the company had launched a new bonding machine and began supplying it to global memory chip customers. Due to lackluster performance from Nvidia and dragging down the sentiment in Wall Street markets, chip stocks weakened in the early trading session, causing the KOSPI index to briefly decline. The KOSPI index has already surged by 50% this year, making it the best-performing stock index globally. Foreign investors were net sellers of KOSPI constituents, while domestic institutions and retail investors were buying. The small-cap Kosdaq index rose by 1%.