S.Korean shares hit record on Samsung Electronics rally, pension fund boost

Samsung Electronics Co

29/05/2026 08:34

KOSPI rises, foreigners net sellers
Korean won weakens against dollar
South Korea benchmark bond yield falls
For the midday report, please click nL1N42601S

    SEOUL, May 29 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korean shares rose more than 3% on Friday to notch a record close, as Samsung Electronics jumped and the national pension fund decided to raise domestic investment. 
** The benchmark KOSPI .KS11 closed up 290.86 points, or 3.55%, at an all-time high of 8,476.15.
** The KOSPI surged 8% this week, after rising 4.7% last week. 
** For the month, it rose 28%, after rising 31% last month. 
** The National Pension Service (NPS) has decided to raise its target for domestic stock holdings amid a world-beating local stock market rally driven by the global AI boom, easing investor worries about its selloff for portfolio rebalancing. 
** "We believe the NPS will likely remain overweight on domestic equities for longer as the risks of sharp rebalancing has been mitigated," said Kim Jin-wook, an economist at Citi. 
** Samsung Electronics 005930.KS rose 5.84%, after the chipmaker said it started shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip to customers, pulling ahead of rivals in distributing a new version of the product critical to AI data centers.
** Peer chipmaker SK Hynix 000660.KS gained 1.92%. 
** Among other index heavyweights, battery maker LG Energy Solution 373220.KS climbed 3.62%, while Hyundai Motor 005380.KS and sister automaker Kia Corp 000270.KS were up 6.79% and 2.98%, respectively. 
** Steelmaker POSCO Holdings 005490.KS added 0.83%, while drugmaker Samsung BioLogics 207940.KS fell 0.73%.
** Of the total 922 traded issues, 206 shares advanced, while 688 declined.
** Foreigners were net sellers of shares worth 1.04 trillion won ($690.29 million). 
** The won was quoted at 1,506.5 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform KRW=KFTC, 0.78% lower than its previous close at 1,494.7.
** The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield KR3YT=RR fell by 1.9 basis points to 3.738%, while the benchmark 10-year yield KR10YT=RR fell by 14.9 basis points to 4.059%.

($1 = 1,506.6200 won)

 (Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)
 ((jihoon.lee@thomsonreuters.com;))