BlockBeats News, July 27th. On Monday morning, the South Korean stock market initially rose but then turned downward. The KOSPI index surged over 1% at the open, lifted by news related to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Naver in the AI sector. However, semiconductor stocks faced selling pressure ahead of earnings reports, causing the index to fall. According to data cited by Reuters, as of the time of writing, the KOSPI was down 0.76% at 6639.97 points.

Goldman Sachs Korea's morning report mentioned that overnight Korean futures fell by 2.8%, with EWY trading at a 0.6% discount to its net asset value, indicating a cautious risk appetite in the global market. Nonetheless, the decline in oil prices and positive news in the Korean storage chain could offer short-term support to the market.

In terms of news, the report highlighted that Samsung Electronics reportedly secured a chip manufacturing contract from Broadcom worth over $200 billion, with the partnership extending until 2030, focusing on 2 nanometers and below processes. SK Hynix was said to have reached a multi-year AI storage supply arrangement with NVIDIA, with a potential value of up to $500 billion. As for Naver, NVIDIA is set to invest around $1 billion to support the expansion of its AI data center in Korea. Naver's stock price outperformed the market significantly in the morning session.

However, the funding situation remains challenging. The report indicated that the balance of retail investors' margin loans in Korea has decreased from a peak of $25 billion to $22 billion, while the scale of leverage ETFs has dropped from $53 billion to $26 billion, signaling ongoing deleveraging in the market. Meanwhile, South Korea's top five banks saw a monthly outflow of 41 trillion Korean won in demand deposits, suggesting that some retail investors view the recent pullback as a re-entry opportunity.

On the trading front, semiconductors continue to dominate, but there is a growing divergence in fund flows. According to Goldman Sachs data, foreign investors and institutions have recently been net sellers of heavyweight chip stocks like SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, while retail investors have been buying into SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Hyundai Motor, and SK Square. In the short term, the AI order narrative remains compelling, but the pressure from earnings realization and deleveraging is limiting the upside.