The KOSPI stood at 6,790.55 shortly after the open, down 0.2 percent. The index shed 16.38 points from Monday's close, recovering from a drop of nearly 2 percent in the first minutes of trade.
The two chipmakers that drove Monday's plunge split at Tuesday's open. SK hynix fell another 1.7 percent to 1,813,000 won ($1,211), while Samsung Electronics rose 0.3 percent to 255,250 won ($170), a divergence traders read as selling still concentrated in the stock most exposed to high-bandwidth memory.
The main index in Seoul plunged 9 percent on Monday, triggering a 20-minute trading halt, after SK hynix posted its biggest one-day drop on record. Investors unwound gains from the company's rally into its Nasdaq debut last week, and a brokerage estimate that its quarterly operating profit could come in about 8 percent below consensus deepened the selling.
The rout carried into the U.S. overnight, where memory names including Micron Technology, SanDisk and Western Digital fell sharply and the Nasdaq lost 1.6 percent. Apple, viewed as insulated from the AI spending race, climbed to a record high as investors rotated out of chipmakers.
Retail investors sold a net 828.4 billion won worth of KOSPI shares in early trade, while institutions bought a net 654.2 billion won and foreign investors bought a net 168.1 billion won.
The KOSDAQ fell 1.6 percent to 786.23.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 was down 1.1 percent at 66,502.65 in early trade.
The won was quoted at 1,497.40 per dollar, down 2.10 won from the previous session, according to Hana Bank.
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