TradingKey - Japanese and South Korean stock markets continued to edge higher, with the Nikkei 225 outperforming the KOSPI. SoftBank surged over 10%, while SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics followed the gains, and Kioxia reversed course to close lower.

During the Asian trading session on July 9, Japanese and South Korean stock markets opened higher and rose in the morning, but retreated in the afternoon, paring earlier gains. Among them, the KOSPI Index rose 2.52%, briefly touching 7,700 points intraday before ultimately closing at 7,475.95 points; the Nikkei 225 closed up 1.2% at 68,557.68 points.

KOSPI Index chart, Source: TradingView

Among individual stocks, SoftBank fell slightly, while other heavyweight stocks staged rebounds of varying degrees. Specifically, Samsung Electronics rose 2.97%, breaking through the 280,000 threshold to close at 286,500 won; SK Hynix surged over 4% in early trading but pared gains to 0.53%, closing at 2,198,000 won; Kioxia reversed from a 4% gain to a 1.1% decline to close at 77,000 yen, ending its two-day winning streak; SoftBank jumped 10.65% to close at 6,370 yen.

SoftBank share price chart, Source: TradingView

Driven by a strong overnight rebound in US tech and semiconductor stocks, along with the dual positive catalysts of South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix (SKHY) launching a historic $28 billion IPO on the US Nasdaq today, Japanese and South Korean stock markets ended the week higher. Meanwhile, OpenAI's announcement of a new product sparked a rally in SoftBank's share price, leading the gains.

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