Samsung Electronics, SK hynix tumble as semiconductor stocks collapse

Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix tumbled Friday amid fears that a sweeping Democratic Party victory in US midterm elections could lead to tighter regulation of AI data center construction. Samsung Electronics fell more than 9%, slipping below the 190,000-won ($142) mark during trading.

As of 9:58 a.m., Samsung Electronics was trading at 183,200 won, down 9.08% from the previous session. The stock touched an intraday low of 175,300 won. A close in the 180,000-won range would mark the first time the stock has finished below the 190,000-won threshold since April 7 — a gap of roughly seven months.

SK hynix was down 11.31% at 1.12 million won, having fallen as low as 1.07 million won during the session. Samsung SDI and SK Square also dropped sharply, losing 11.86% and 10.38%, respectively.

The declines reflected the full force of an overnight selloff on Wall Street. The NASDAQ Composite closed down 1,421.52 points, or 5.52%, at 24,315.00 on Thursday (local time).

That was the index's steepest single-day drop since "Liberation Day" last year, pushing it more than 10% below the all-time high set last month and into technical correction territory.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 12.25% — its worst one-day loss since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

Nvidia fell 9.26%, Broadcom lost 10.43%, Micron dropped 17.46%, AMD slid 17.26% and SanDisk tumbled 22.26%.

At the same time, the Kospi was down 7.33% at 4,988.13 — the first time the index had fallen below the 5,000 mark during trading since Feb. 6, a span of nine months.

With the Kospi down more than 8% at the open, a Level 1 circuit breaker was triggered at around 9:03 a.m. It was the 11th time this year a circuit breaker has been activated on the Kospi market.