[Anchor]

Boosted by news of the U.S. AI company Anthropic going public, the Kospi rebounded by over 3%, breaking a recent downturn to close higher for the first time in four sessions. Fueled by a semiconductor boom driven by the AI craze, the South Korean economy posted a surprise 1% growth in the third quarter, well exceeding market forecasts.

Reporter Jung Hye-jin has the details.

[Reporter]

The Kospi, which surged by up to 4% early in the session, ultimately finished the day up 3%.

This marks the first closing rise in four sessions since October 21.

Today, October 27, the Kospi closed at 5,638.34, up 3.09% from the previous day.

The index opened 3.46% higher at 5,658.65, surging into the 5,700 range during the session, which triggered a program buy sidecar halting program purchases for five minutes around 10:13 AM.

Foreigners net purchased 592.7 billion won and institutions net purchased 282.1 billion won to lead the rally, while individuals net sold 949.2 billion won.

Analysts suggest that investor sentiment was revived by news that Anthropic, the developer of the U.S. AI model Claude, has filed for an initial public offering.

Driven by expectations of a semiconductor tailwind, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix finished the session with gains of over 4% and 5%, respectively.

The Kosdaq also closed up 2.29% at 743.83.

Buoyed by this AI-semiconductor tailwind, along with increases in government consumption and facility investment, the South Korean economy achieved surprise growth in the third quarter of this year.

The Bank of Korea announced that the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for the third quarter came in at 1.0%.

This figure is more than three times higher than the BOK's third-quarter growth forecast of 0.3% presented in August.

Exports, centered around semiconductors, grew by 2.3%, which is seen as having driven the surprise growth.

As a result, the BOK's initially projected annual growth forecast of 3.3% is expected to be revised upward by a significant margin, supported by the strong third-quarter performance.

(Video Editing: Lee Sang-min)