{"id":434613,"date":"2026-05-06T05:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434613\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:53:12","slug":"ai-boom-drives-a-rally-in-buying-of-tech-shares-pushing-south-koreas-kospi-to-a-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/434613\/","title":{"rendered":"AI boom drives a rally in buying of tech shares, pushing South Korea’s Kospi to a record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TOKYO (AP) \u2014 South Korea\u2019s Kospi soared nearly 7% to a fresh record on Wednesday as Samsung Electronics’ stock jumped nearly 13% in a rally driven by expectations of strong growth in artificial intelligence<\/a> and hopes for progress in ending the U.S.-Iran war.<\/p>\n

Shares in SK Hynix, another major Korean computer chipmaker, shot up 10% early Wednesday. Both Samsung and SK Hynix are major manufacturers of the computer chips vital for AI applications.<\/p>\n

News that Iranian officials were traveling to China<\/a> ahead of a summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping<\/a> lifted market sentiment. That also helped ease volatility in oil prices.<\/p>\n

South Korea’s market was closed Tuesday for a holiday and on reopening gained 6.7% early Wednesday to 7,398.34.<\/p>\n

Shares mostly rose in other Asian markets, though Tokyo trading was closed for a holiday.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s S&P\/ASX 200 gained nearly 1.0% to 8,766.80 in morning trading.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng gained 0.7% to 26,081.52, while the Shanghai Composite rose 1.0% to 4,152.68.<\/p>\n

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude slipped $1.37 to $100.90 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost $1.50 to $108.37 a barrel, echoing declines Tuesday that erased the big jumps earlier in the week.<\/a> The prices still remain well above their roughly $70 price before the war with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. military leaders have said a ceasefire with Iran<\/a> is in effect, although uncertainties clearly remain. The U.S. military is trying to force open a path in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, which would allow oil tankers to resume shipments from the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% to top its prior all-time high <\/a> set at the end of last week, closing at 7,259.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% to 49,298.25, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite set its own record, rallying 1% to 25,326.13.<\/p>\n

Reports on the U.S. economy came in mixed. One said growth for U.S. services businesses unexpectedly slowed last month, with some companies saying the war is hurting spending. A separate report said U.S. employers were advertising slightly more job openings at the end of March than economists expected, an encouraging signal for the job market.<\/p>\n

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 157.88 Japanese yen from 157.89 yen. The euro cost $1.1720, up from $1.1693.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 South Korea\u2019s Kospi soared nearly 7% to a fresh record on Wednesday as Samsung Electronics’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,15504,6375,81767,541,80],"class_list":["post-434613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-hynix","tag-south-korea","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}