SEOUL, July 06 (AJP) — Asian equities opened the week cautiously Monday, with investors awaiting a string of major developments for South Korea's semiconductor sector, including Samsung Electronics' earnings guidance and SK hynix's landmark U.S. listing.
As of 10:50 a.m., the benchmark KOSPI slipped 0.58 percent to 8,033.76, while the tech-heavy KOSDAQ tumbled 3.60 percent to 837.32.
Retail investors were the market's only net buyers, purchasing 1 trillion won worth of KOSPI shares. Foreign investors and domestic institutions sold a net 234 billion won and 812.1 billion won, respectively.
Samsung Electronics traded little changed at 311,500 won after jumping nearly 5 percent earlier in anticipation of its second-quarter earnings guidance due Tuesday. SK hynix fell 3 percent to 2,355,500 won as investors shifted their focus toward its July 10 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing on Nasdaq.
Consensus estimates currently place Samsung Electronics' second-quarter operating profit at 85.6 trillion won, while several brokerages expect earnings to exceed 90 trillion won.
Meritz Securities on Monday raised its forecast to 90.1 trillion won from 85.2 trillion won and lifted its target price to 500,000 won from 420,000 won, saying the market has yet to fully reflect potential provisioning adjustments that could once again produce a sizable earnings surprise.
Daishin Securities also said Samsung's earnings momentum has strengthened in recent months as analysts continued revising forecasts higher, reinforcing the stock's longer-term uptrend.
SK hynix is set to list ADRs worth about $29 billion on Nasdaq on Friday, a transaction that could become the largest first-time share sale ever by a foreign company, surpassing both Alibaba's $25 billion U.S. debut in 2014 and Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion IPO in 2019.
A Nasdaq listing would make SK hynix eligible for inclusion in major U.S. equity indexes such as the Nasdaq-100, potentially attracting passive inflows from exchange-traded funds including Invesco QQQ, which manages more than $480 billion in assets.
Defense shares also attracted heavy buying.
Hanwha Ocean surged 11.97 percent to 119,700 won on expectation ahead of Canada's announcement of the preferred bidder for its submarine program later Monday. Investors are betting the Korean shipbuilder will prevail over Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) in the project, valued at up to 60 trillion won.
Hanwha Ocean also continued to benefit from last week's selection as the preferred bidder for South Korea's next-generation destroyer program.
Within the Samsung group, preferred shares of Samsung Electronics climbed 5.29 percent, Samsung C&T gained 5.42 percent and Samsung Life Insurance rose 3.79 percent. Samsung Biologics fell 1.90 percent, Samsung SDI lost 2.14 percent and Samsung Electro-Mechanics declined 2.71 percent.
Other large-cap cyclicals also outperformed. Hyundai Motor rose 2.85 percent, Kia advanced 5.46 percent, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries gained 3.64 percent, Hyundai Mobis added 4.86 percent, Hanwha Aerospace climbed 1.19 percent and Doosan Enerbility edged up 1.86 percent. Financial shares extended recent gains, with KB Financial rising 2.88 percent and Shinhan Financial adding 2.14 percent.
The KOSDAQ remained largely neglected as investors migrate to the KOSPI.
Battery, biotech and semiconductor equipment shares broadly weakened, with Altogen, EcoPro BM, EcoPro, Jusung Engineering, Wonik IPS, Reno Industrial and ABL Bio all posting notable declines. HLB bucked the trend, rising 1.96 percent.
The uneven performance underscored investors' continued concentration in large-cap blue chips—particularly semiconductor leaders and defense exporters—while growth-oriented sectors remained under pressure.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets remained mostly flat. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.34 percent as a firmer yen weighed on exporters, China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.38 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped 0.21 percent.
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