[Digital Today reporter Sangyeop Oh (오상엽)] South Korea's KOSPI surged more than 13 percent early on Friday as rebound buying flowed into large semiconductor stocks after three straight sessions of sharp declines. Buy-side sidecars were triggered simultaneously shortly after the open on the KOSPI and Kosdaq.

As of 9:03 a.m., the KOSPI was up 775.71 points, or 13.87 percent, at 6,369.27 from the previous session. The index opened up 64.23 points, or 1.15 percent, at 5,657.79 and quickly widened gains.

In the benchmark market, retail investors were net buyers of 64.0 billion won. Foreigners and institutions were net sellers of 50.3 billion won and 12.8 billion won, respectively.

The Kosdaq was up 38.79 points, or 6.02 percent, at 683.57 at the same time.

As the indexes surged, buy-side sidecars were triggered in both markets.

In the benchmark market, program buy orders were suspended for 5 minutes after KOSPI 200 futures rose 129.90 points, or 14.97 percent, from the reference price to 997.50 at 9:06:02 a.m.

A buy-side sidecar also operated in the Kosdaq market at 9:06:03 a.m. At the time of the trigger, Kosdaq 150 futures were up 99.40 points, or 9.33 percent, at 1,163.80, and the Kosdaq 150 was up 84.86 points, or 7.91 percent, at 1,157.28.

Large semiconductor stocks led the index higher. SK Hynix was up 27.08 percent at 1,680,000 won, while Samsung Electronics rose 19.81 percent to 248,000 won.

Elsewhere, SK Square rose 19.90 percent to 958,000 won. Samsung Electro-Mechanics gained 16.72 percent to 1,026,000 won. Samsung Life Insurance rose 12.12 percent and Hyundai Motor gained 4.99 percent.

Samsung Biologics, KB Financial and LG Energy Solution fell 1.64 percent, 1.37 percent and 0.94 percent, respectively.

In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won was at 1,426.80 per dollar, down 0.60 won from the previous session.

The sharp rebound in domestic semiconductor stocks is seen as having been influenced by gains in U.S. technology and chip shares. In the U.S. market overnight, Micron rose 18.36 percent, Microsoft gained 15.51 percent and AMD added 13.00 percent. The Philadelphia semiconductor index climbed 8.19 percent.

U.S. June personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation met market expectations, and earnings from major big tech companies helped ease some concerns about a slowdown in artificial intelligence (AI) investment. Expectations that forced selling by global leverage funds that had recently pressured chip stocks has entered its final stage also led to rebound buying.

Han Ji-young (한지영), a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said the fall in net assets of single-stock leveraged products could gradually reduce related supply and demand volatility. He said the environment is shifting toward factors supportive of gains, given the possibility that global semiconductor deleveraging is ending, large technology companies are expanding capital spending and the scale of the unprecedented decline.