The gains came ahead of Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang's expected visit to Seoul this week for meetings with LG and Naver, fueling expectations of potential artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics-related partnerships between the world's dominant AI chipmaker and South Korea's most aggressive robotics investors.
LG Electronics advanced 28.0 percent to 375,000 won, sustaining the bulk of an earlier limit-up print, with the rally unmistakably a group-level rerating rather than a single-stock move: LG the holding company surged 21.1 percent to 177,500 won, LG CNS climbed 25.9 percent to 143,300 won, and NAVER advanced 10.3 percent to 258,000 won as the AI infrastructure theme widened beyond the LG orbit.
The machinery sector rose 8.4 percent, led by Robostar at 30.0 percent and Doosan Robotics at 25.4 percent, confirming the buying is a physical AI and robotics rerating rather than a rotation within the semiconductor trade.
Samsung Electronics rose a more measured 3.8 percent to 329,000 won while SK hynix eased to 2,313,000 won — the chip names rising but no longer leading, ceding the morning to a theme that has spent most of 2026 in their shadow.
The rerating carries fundamental support: LG Electronics reported first-quarter operating profit of 1.67 trillion won in late May, 32.9 percent above the prior year and well ahead of consensus, validating the market's reassessment of a stock that spent five years as a chronic underperformer.
Foreign investors extended their selling streak to at least a sixteenth consecutive session — a run that has seen them unload nearly 50 trillion won since early May, a cumulative figure without modern precedent in the South Korean market — but the more significant flow development of the morning was institutional investors turning net buyers of 836.3 billion won, a reversal from the institutional selling that defined much of May and a sign the demand base is broadening beyond the retail buying that has been the index's primary support. Domestic individuals added 486.3 billion won in net purchases.
The won weakened to 1,510.1 against the dollar, breaching the level for the first time since the Bank of Korea flagged currency pressure in last Thursday's rate decision, a reminder that the equity record and the currency strain are two sides of the same foreign-selling dynamic.
The junior KOSDAQ recovered to near flat at 1,074.2, reversing an earlier 2.2 percent decline as robotics and growth names caught the physical AI bid.
The morning's gains rest on a question the market has not yet answered: whether the expected Huang's visit here would produce contractual cooperation or remain at the level of strategic signaling.
LG Electronics has risen approximately 220 percent this year, surpassing every analyst price target, and the gap between a confirmed Nvidia partnership and a well-photographed meeting is the principal downside risk to an index that has now set records in four of its past five sessions.
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