Taiwan and Korean stocks stage a V-shaped reversal! Plunged nearly a thousand points at the open, then recovered the 41,000 mark, with the KOSPI nearly hitting a circuit breaker

U.S. President Trump issued a “rapid action” warning to Iran, as geopolitical tensions escalated rapidly. Coupled with all four major U.S. stock indexes ending lower last Friday, Tech Stocks saw a sharp sell-off, U.S. Treasury yields rose, and on Monday, Asia-Pacific stock markets opened under pressure and fell broadly. Taiwan stocks, Korean stocks, and Japanese stocks all dropped in sync, ranging from 2.2% to 6.2%, with Taiwan and Korea stocks even staging dramatic V-shaped reversals during the trading session that swallowed the losses.

U.S. stock sell-off lit the fuse: Taiwan stocks plunged nearly 1,000 points at the open, while Korean stocks fell nearly 5%

Last Friday, U.S. equities were hit by dual pressure from Tech Stocks selling and rising U.S. government bond yields, and all four major indexes closed lower across the board. The Dow Industrial Index fell 537.29 points, down 1.07%; the S&P 500 fell 1.24%; the Nasdaq fell 1.54%; and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sank 4.02%, becoming one of the indexes with the deepest declines, casting a shadow over Monday’s opening session in Asia.

Hit by both the U.S. stock slide and geopolitical risks, Taiwan stocks saw a rapid sell-off within the first 10 minutes of trading on Monday, plunging more than 1,000 points, breaking below the 4,1000-point level, with the intraday low reaching 40,287 points. Large-cap stocks such as TSMC, UMC, Delta Electronics, and Formosa Photonics all fell in tandem, while technology sub-sectors including memory, ABF substrate carriers, panels, low-earth-orbit satellites, silicon photonics, and AI all saw broad declines. Traditional industries and financials also weakened in step, and market sentiment was once again sluggish.

Korean stocks also opened sharply lower; at one point, the drop exceeded 4.6%. The index slipped below 7,200 points. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix both led the downturn, plunging nearly 7%. Japan stocks’ decline on Monday was more stable. In Tokyo, the market opened at 61,299 points, down 110 points. During the session, it once dipped below the 6,1000-point round-number level, with the low reaching 60,376 points, down 1.68%.

Samsung labor-management talks bring good news: Korean stocks strong V-shift, Taiwan stocks’ losses narrow in sync

However, intraday conditions reversed rapidly. After Korean stocks triggered a circuit breaker, the KOSPI Index quickly rebounded, ultimately recovering all of the day’s losses and ending up back at 7,540 points. The intraday swing between highs and lows was nearly 500 points. Samsung Electronics also flipped from being down nearly 7% to turning positive quickly, rising more than 6%, back to 28.15 trillion won. SK hynix likewise turned from a drop of nearly 6% to a rise of over 3%, currently at 188.9 trillion won, becoming the most watched “big V reversal” among Asian stocks today.

Market participants said that new developments in Samsung Electronics’ labor-management negotiations were the key trigger for this V-shaped reversal. Once the news broke, buying surged rapidly into the semiconductor sector, driving a retaliatory rebound in the broader market. Taiwan stocks also followed Korea’s lead; early-session market sentiment, which had been extremely gloomy, gradually stabilized, and the downside clearly narrowed.

As Korean stocks rebounded strongly on Samsung’s positive news, Japan stocks’ decline also gradually narrowed. By the end of the morning session, they closed at 60,843 points, down 566 points, indicating that overall sentiment in Asian stocks had stabilized somewhat. Still, the market remains highly sensitive and on alert to any moves in the semiconductor supply chain and to policy direction.

This article, “Taiwan and Korea stocks stage a V-shaped reversal! After plunging nearly 1,000 points at the open, they recover the 40k+ level; KOSPI nearly triggers a circuit breaker,” first appeared on Lian News ABMedia.