Hynix Made Over 60 Tril, Samsung Over 89 Tril... Why Are Stock Prices Falling?

Despite Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reporting record-breaking earnings, semiconductor stock prices and the KOSPI continue to plummet.

The KOSPI surpassed the 9,000 milestone just a month ago, but volatility has since surged to the point where buy and sell sidecars and circuit breakers have been repeatedly triggered.

Furthermore, market structure plays a role, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounting for more than half of the KOSPI 200, alongside single-stock leverage ETFs whose market capitalization swelled from 4.4 trillion won to 11.9 trillion won in just two months.

On top of that, the unveiling of Moonshot AI's K-3, which competes with top-tier U.S. models in financial and coding performance, has reignited doubts about semiconductor investments.

In this week's O-Graph, we analyzed through five graphs why the market moved in the opposite direction despite Samsung Electronics posting second-quarter operating profits of 89.4 trillion won and SK Hynix recording an operating profit of 60.5 trillion won with an operating profit margin of 76.3%.

(Reported by An Hyemin | Filmed by Hwang Se-hoe and Kim Sang-yun | Edited by Lee Ki-eun | Designed by Ahn Jun-seok | Intern: Shin Yeon-sung | Produced by Knowledge Contents IP Team)