South Korean shares close at 9-month low on battery slump; chip rebound caps losses

By Reuters News07:03 (UTC), 9 November 2026 Updated

SEOUL, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korean shares closed at their lowest level in nine months in a choppy trading session on Monday, led by a slump in battery makers while a rebound in chipmakers capped losses.

** The benchmark KOSPI .KS11 closed down 40.84 points, or 0.81%, at 5,018.85, its lowest closing level since February 2.

** The index swung between a gain of 2.2% and a loss of 1.4% during the session.

** Chipmaker Samsung Electronics 005930.KS closed up 0.64% and peer SK Hynix 000660.KS ended 0.35% higher. Earlier in the session, they rose more than 3% each on dip-buying after last week's slump.

** Nvidia NVDA.O shares fell in out-of-hours trading on Monday after an internal investigation into whether CEO Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort put his future at the AI chipmaker under scrutiny.

** "Jensen Huang's scandal has arisen as a new factor of uncertainty," said Lee Kyoung-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities.

** A senior South Korean official said the issues currently affecting Nvidia NVDA.O would not affect South Korea's contracted supply of graphics processing units (GPUs) from the US AI chipmaker.

** Battery maker LG Energy Solution 373220.KS slid 5.78%. Peers Samsung SDI 006400.KS and SK Innovation 096770.KS slumped 11.3$ and 2.47%, respectively, on continued profit-taking pressure after a short-lived rally last week on the US midterm election results.

** Battery materials makers LG Chem 051910.KS and POSCO Holdings 005490.KS fell 5.17% and 2.26%, respectively.

** Hyundai Motor 005380.KS and sister automaker Kia Corp 000270.KS were down 2.86% and 3.29% each.

** Foreigners were net sellers of shares worth 693.0 billion won ($512.20 million).

** The won was quoted at 1,347.1 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 1.18% higher than its previous close at 1,363.0.

** The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 2.0 basis points to 3.642%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 1.7 basis points to 3.869%.

($1 = 1,353.0000 won)