South Korea's KOSPI rose more than 1 percent on Tuesday, regaining the 7,100 level, helped by gains in major semiconductor shares such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and by joint buying from foreign investors and institutions. A wait-and-see mood persists ahead of the Chuseok holiday, but gains in U.S. chip stocks and expectations for the memory sector are lifting investor sentiment.

As of 9:20 a.m., the KOSPI was up 102.10 points, or 1.45 percent, from the previous session at 7,120.01.

The index opened up 136.08 points, or 1.77 percent, at 7,153.99 from the previous session. It has been moving around the 7,100 level in early trade.

In the main board market, foreign investors and institutions were net buyers of 157.9 billion won and 211.5 billion won, respectively. Retail investors were net sellers of 444.4 billion won.

Among top market-cap stocks, semiconductor-related shares were gaining. Samsung Electronics was trading up 2.62 percent from the previous session at 283,750 won, while SK Hynix was up 1.63 percent at 1.87 million won.

SK Square was up 3.44 percent, Samsung Electro-Mechanics gained 1.28 percent, and LG Energy Solution rose 2.00 percent. Hyundai Motor was up 0.97 percent, KB Financial Group added 0.17 percent, and Samsung C&T climbed 2.18 percent.

Samsung Biologics, however, was down 0.36 percent at 1.386 million won.

The KOSDAQ was also higher. At the same time, it was up 11.02 points, or 1.32 percent, from the previous session at 845.40.

In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won was at 1,349.60 per dollar, up 5.90 won, or 0.44 percent, from the previous session.

On Monday, the KOSPI rose more than 2 percent early in the session but gave up most of its gains on profit-taking to close at 7,017.91. On Tuesday, expectations of rising demand for server DRAM, combined with overnight gains in U.S. chip stocks, are drawing renewed buying interest led by semiconductors.

Han Ji-young (한지영), a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said it was worth noting that the KOSPI held the 7,000 level on Monday while going through profit-taking pressure linked to the holiday wait-and-see mood. She said it could fall below 7,000 amid a tug-of-war in supply and demand ahead of the holiday, but it would be better to maintain allocations to shareholder-return sectors such as banks and insurance, as well as to the AI infrastructure value chain including semiconductors, multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) and power equipment.