BlockBeats News, July 30th: The recent intense sell-off in the South Korean stock market has seen AI chip trades shift from a crowded long position to concentrated unwinding. The KOSPI index reached a historic high of 9385.59 on June 19th, before quickly plummeting in less than a month. With the index currently around 5689 points, the retracement from the peak is approximately 39%; if measured from yesterday's intraday low, the maximum decline is close to 44%. In terms of market capitalization, the total market cap of the KOSPI has significantly shrunk from its mid-June peak, with market estimates suggesting an evaporation of nearly $2 trillion (about 1.55 times the total market cap of Bitcoin).

The core pressure of this round of decline is concentrated in semiconductor-heavyweights. As a market-cap-weighted index, the KOSPI is heavily influenced by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Recent estimates show that Samsung Electronics accounts for nearly 30% of the KOSPI's market cap, while SK hynix contributes over 20%, with the combined weight of these two companies exceeding 50%. In other words, the South Korean mainboard index is highly tied to the AI storage, HBM, and semiconductor cycle in this market movement.

Prior to this, SK hynix saw a surge in stock price driven by HBM demand, rising memory prices, and AI server orders, while Samsung Electronics also benefited from the market's bet on AI storage recovery. However, as global tech stock volatility intensifies, investors have begun to reassess AI capital expenditure returns, Chinese storage competition, valuation overstretches, and the risk of leveraged fund withdrawals, leading to a rapid reversal in the South Korean semiconductor chain.