Asian Chip Stocks Rebound as Kospi Climbs Nearly 3 Percent

South Korea's Kospi rose 2.96% to 5,501.08 in early trade on Friday, Nov. 13, leading a broad rebound in Asian semiconductor stocks one day after Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia's chief executive dragged the region's markets lower. Samsung Electronics gained 3.37% to 215,000 won, and SK hynix climbed 4.55% to 1,311,000 won, back above the 1.3 million won mark, TradingKey reported.

The recovery followed a sharp but contained selloff. On Thursday, Taiwan's Taiex fell 2.63%, the Kospi lost 0.6% and the Nikkei 225 dropped 0.7%, after Nvidia's board accepted Huang's resignation and named chief financial officer Colette Kress interim CEO. The simple reading is that the region has decided the leadership change does not change chip demand overnight, and buyers returned.

How Seoul opened

The Kospi started the day 109.68 points, or 2.05%, higher at 5,452.41, Bloomingbit reported. By 9:10 a.m. Seoul time it stood at 5,492.05, up 2.79%.

Foreign investors bought a net 179.3 billion won in the opening minutes, while retail investors sold a net 190.7 billion won. Institutions, not households, drove the bounce.

Seo Sang-young of Mirae Asset Securities said Thursday's decline in Seoul had already priced in some of the bad news. He flagged rising U.S. Treasury yields and higher oil prices as continued pressure on foreign flows.

What did Tokyo and Taipei do?

Japan's Nikkei 225 opened up 1.43% at 61,689.73, recovering much of Thursday's 0.7% drop to 60,819.36. Memory maker Kioxia rose 5.12% to 9,776 yen, and SoftBank Group edged up 0.75% to 3,766 yen.

Taipei moved harder. The Taiex opened up 627.88 points at 43,719.75 and touched 44,223.14, a gain of 1,131.27 points, Next Apple News reported at 9:05 a.m. local time. Taiwan's weighted index is the region's most direct proxy for global AI silicon demand, and its swing reflects that role.

Among the chip names:

• TSMC opened at NT$2,375, up NT$35, after falling 2.3% on Thursday, and rose as much as NT$50 to NT$2,390 in early trade, Yahoo News Taiwan reported.
• MediaTek opened limit-up at NT$4,235, up NT$385.
• Delta Electronics rose NT$40 to NT$1,280, and Hon Hai gained NT$4 to NT$244.

Next Apple News cited MSCI's decision to raise Taiwan's weight in its indexes and easing foreign selling as support, while noting that foreign net short positions in Taiex futures remained above 90,000 contracts. Hong Kong opens at 9:30 a.m. local time, after this report; the Hang Seng closed down 1.3% at 24,008.55 on Thursday.

What was Asia pricing on Thursday?

Thursday was the first full Asian session after the Nvidia news broke, and it produced a split verdict. Taiwan, with the deepest exposure to the AI supply chain, fell hardest. Korea and Japan declined modestly.

Wall Street told a similar story of containment. Nvidia fell as much as 13% at the open and recovered to close down 4.3%, AFP reported, while AMD and Broadcom each gained more than 5%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite each closed down 0.4%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 0.54%.

Investors treated the resignation as a company-specific shock rather than a sector-wide one, and competitors picked up part of the market's confidence.

The backdrop beyond chips

Two external pressures still hang over the region. Brent crude rose 3.3% to $95.82 a barrel on Thursday after President Trump signaled less interest in a peace deal with Iran. Higher oil feeds into inflation and, in turn, into the Treasury yields that Seo warned about.

The yen, meanwhile, stayed near the 160-per-dollar line, the level where Japan intervened in the summer. The dollar bought 159.84 yen late on Thursday, AFP reported. U.S. stock futures levels for Friday's Asian session were not reported in the sources checked.

The open leaves Asia's chip bellwethers near their pre-shock levels, and the next test is whether foreign buyers keep absorbing a futures market that still holds more than 90,000 net short contracts against the Taiex.