Asian stocks surge, South Korean market hits circuit breaker

Asian stock markets experienced a powerful surge on Friday, July 31, 2026, with South Korea's KOSPI index leading the charge by jumping over 14% and triggering an automatic trading halt, known as a circuit breaker. This significant rebound followed a strong performance on Wall Street the previous day, where U.S. tech stocks, especially semiconductor companies, showed remarkable recovery.

The rally in Asia was significantly boosted by the performance of chipmakers. In South Korea, SK Hynix saw its stock price soar by 27%, with Samsung Electronics also climbing 20%. These gains propelled the KOSPI index to new heights, opening higher and eventually surging past the 6,000-point mark to reach 6,386.05 points, a gain of 792.48 points or 14.16%, before the circuit breaker was activated.

Japan's Nikkei index also participated in the broad market upswing. Opening higher, the Nikkei climbed over 2,600 points to surpass the 64,000-point level, reaching 64,528 points, marking a 4.3% increase for the day. This upward movement reflected a wider investor confidence across Asian markets.

The positive sentiment in Asia was largely a response to the previous day's rally on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 in the United States. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 8.19%, and TSMC's ADR surged by 7.64%. This tech-led recovery on Wall Street, driven partly by Microsoft's significant single-day stock increase and easing concerns about massive AI infrastructure spending, provided a strong foundation for the Asian markets' rebound.