SEOUL, May 29 (AJP) - The KOSPI surged 3.55 percent to close at a record 8,476.15, its sharpest advance this week, as reports of a United States-Iran deal in principle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz unleashed a broad rally that lifted autos and batteries alongside semiconductors — a breadth the AI-driven run had conspicuously failed to deliver in prior sessions.
The catalyst was unambiguous. A senior American official confirmed during the session that Washington and Tehran had reached a framework agreement to reopen the Strait, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaling a formal announcement was imminent, though cautioning that any initial deal would be time-limited rather than a permanent settlement. For South Korea — which sources roughly 70 percent of its crude through the waterway — the relief was immediate. Oil prices fell, the inflation premium compressing Korean assets eased, and the market re-rated broadly rather than selectively.
Samsung Electronics rose 5.84 percent to 317,000 won ($210.3), recovering sharply from Thursday's retreat, while SK hynix advanced 1.92 percent to 2,333,000 won. The more telling signal came from Hyundai Motor, which surged 6.79 percent to 723,000 won — a name whose rally tracks Hormuz relief directly, given its dependence on Middle Eastern and European export lanes. The contrast with Thursday's session, when the index slid 0.53 percent even as SK hynix held firm, illustrated how different today's driver was: not AI demand, but geopolitical de-escalation reaching sectors that had been left behind.
Foreign investors remained net sellers for a sixteenth consecutive session, extending a streak during which they have unloaded nearly 50 trillion won, a cumulative figure that now dwarfs any comparable episode in the Korean market's history, including the COVID-19 panic of 2020. Domestic individuals and institutions absorbed the supply for the third straight session, continuing the structural shift that has sustained record highs even as foreign capital exits. The Korean won closed at 1506.5 against the dollar — that number is the key test of whether today's Hormuz relief reached the currency, or whether the inflation pressure the Bank of Korea cited just one session ago remains unresolved.
The breadth figures published this morning set the day's advance in sharper relief. Over the past month, 82 percent of the 2,764 stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ have declined even as the headline index has risen nearly 24 percent — fewer than one in seven listed names has advanced. Today's sector rotation into autos and batteries was a partial answer to that concentration, not a resolution of it.
Japan's Nikkei 225 closed up 2.53 percent at 66,329.50, with SoftBank Group advancing 4.60 percent to 7,453 yen as geopolitical relief lifted the region broadly. China moved in the opposite direction, the Shanghai Composite declining 0.65 percent to 4,072.09, with CATL and BYD both closing marginally lower — a reminder that the Hormuz story transmits more directly to energy-import-dependent economies like Korea and Japan than to China.
The Iranian deal framework, if it holds, reshapes the inputs to nearly every forecast that matters for Korean markets. Lower oil prices reduce the imported inflation that drove the Bank of Korea's hawkish tilt on Thursday. A stabilizing won would ease the foreign-selling cycle that has defined May. And a broader sector rally, if today's auto and battery gains persist, would begin to address the concentration risk that has made the headline index a misleading indicator of how most Korean investors have actually fared this year. Whether Friday's relief translates into a durable repricing depends on whether the deal is signed, not merely signaled.
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