Samsung stocks back to pre-COVID prices as foreigners return

Samsung Electronics shares bounced back to 60,000 won ($50.30) in nearly five months on Wednesday, with mounting interest of foreign investors for the fourth consecutive session.

The stock price of market bellwether closed at 59,000 won -- up 400 won, or 0.68 percent, from the previous session’s close. The price hit an intraday high of 60,400 won in early morning trading.

It was the first time that shares of South Korea’s leading tech giant exceeded 60,000 won during a trading session since Feb. 20. After closing at 54,100 won on July 23, the price has been on an uptrend, soaring over 10 percent, getting closer to its 52-week high of 62,800 won.

While retail and institutional investors dumped nearly 192.18 billion won and 88.5 billion won of Samsung shares, respectively, foreign investors net purchased stocks worth 289.49 billion won on Wednesday. They bought some 1.38 trillion won worth of the tech firm’s shares in the previous three trading sessions.

Market watchers attributed Samsung’s bullish run in the market to the growing expectations of offshore investors that the local chipmaker may benefit from Intel’s plan to outsource more chip manufacturing.

On July 23, the US-based firm said it has pushed back the launch date of its new 7-nanometer chip technology for PCs and it would consider outsourcing to other semiconductor foundries.

Samsung is also expected to benefit from escalating US-China tensions as Huawei Technologies is facing further scrutiny in the global 5G network sector, industry analysts said.

“Samsung shares jumped 11 percent in July. Foreigners have scooped up about 918 billion won, which marks the largest figure since May 31, 2018, with 1.1 trillion won,” said Kim Dong-won, an analyst at KB Securities.

On the back of advances by local tech firms, the nation’s benchmark Kospi slightly rose by 6.17 points, or 0.27 percent from the previous session, to close at 2,263.16.

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)