South Korea's KOSPI shrugged off the shock from the previous day's sharp drop and regained the 8,000 level in a day. With heavyweight chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rebounding sharply, a buy sidecar was triggered in the main board market.

On July 3, the KOSPI ended at 8,088.34, up 440.25 points, or 5.76 percent, from the previous session. The index opened at 7,739.75, up 91.66 points, or 1.20 percent, from the prior close, then slid as low as the 7,300 level before turning higher.

The gains widened in the afternoon. The KOSPI recovered the 8,000 level at around 1:39 p.m. and stayed firm. It briefly topped 8,100 during the session.

The Korea Exchange triggered a buy sidecar in the main board market at 1:47 p.m. It was the 31st sidecar trigger this year. Buy sidecars were triggered 16 times and sell sidecars 15 times.

According to the exchange, mini KOSPI200 futures rose 5.10 percent to 1,292.54 points at 1:47:16 p.m. from the reference price of 1,229.76 points. Program trading buy orders were suspended for 5 minutes.

In the main board market, institutions led the rise in the index with net purchases of 4.457 trillion won. Individuals and foreigners posted net sales of 2.3073 trillion won and 2.2111 trillion won, respectively.

Most top stocks by market capitalisation rose. Samsung Electronics ended at 309,500 won, up 23,500 won, or 8.22 percent, from the previous session. SK Hynix rose 238,000 won, or 10.88 percent, to 2,425,000 won.

SK Square rose 4.20 percent, Samsung Electro-Mechanics gained 3.27 percent, Hyundai Motor climbed 2.07 percent, LG Energy Solution added 2.40 percent, Samsung Life rose 3.37 percent, Samsung C&T gained 6.64 percent and Samsung Biologics advanced 1.07 percent.

The KOSDAQ also edged up. It ended at 868.41, up 1.69 points, or 0.19 percent, from the previous session.

As of the close, the won-dollar exchange rate stood at 1,527.00 won, down 15.50 won, or 1.00 percent, from the previous session.

Market participants see bargain hunting after the previous day's sharp fall and a rebound in heavyweight chip stocks as having driven the KOSPI's recovery. Supply-demand 부담 around single-stock leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds and volatility in heavyweight stocks are still cited as key market variables.