SoftBank plans to issue 90 billion Japanese yen in bonds to support AI investments.

The A-share storage chip sector rallied in the mid-afternoon, with stocks including Tongfu Microelectronics and GigaDevice narrowing their declines. Torrence surged over 16%, C-Changxin rose more than 6.5%, and Surpass Technology gained over 10%. The Shenzhen Component Index climbed more than 1% in the afternoon, the ChiNext Index advanced 1.04%, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.23%, and over 4,000 stocks across the two bourses traded higher.

Bithumb will list RLUSD and AEON on its KRW trading pair market.

SK Hynix’s American Depositary Receipts (ADRs, ticker: SKHY) listed on the U.S. Nasdaq have launched a conversion mechanism with the company’s Korean domestic shares. Starting today, investors can convert ADRs to Korean shares or vice versa, subject to certain regulatory restrictions, offering global investors more flexible cross-border trading access. The move follows SK Hynix’s completion of its roughly $26.5 billion ADR issuance and listing in early July, further enhancing the stock’s global liquidity. Each ADR represents one-tenth of a Korean share; the U.S.-traded ADR currently still trades at a premium. It should be noted that actual conversion cannot be completed on the same day, as it requires procedures involving the depositary bank (Citibank), foreign exchange declaration, and administrative processes, typically taking several business days. Applications are primarily submitted via securities brokers to the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) and the depositary bank, while trade execution and arbitrage effectiveness are subject to the trading sessions of Korean and U.S. stocks (Korean shares trade during daytime hours, while U.S. shares trade at night).

According to Bitget’s market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has narrowed its decline to 8.46% after previously falling more than 12%. SK Hynix is now down 11.5%, while Samsung Electronics is down 7.5%.

According to South Korean media reports, South Korea’s stock market has suffered two consecutive days of sharp declines. On July 28, amid massive foreign sell-offs, South Korean retail investors net bought over 4.3 trillion won against the trend to bottom-fish. However, on the 29th, the market sell-off deepened, and retail investors shifted to panic selling, net selling 1.42 trillion won in the morning session, indicating that the capital that had previously stepped in to buy the dip has started cutting losses and exiting. As of the morning of July 29 local time, the KOSPI once fell more than 12% and the KOSDAQ dropped over 8%, triggering circuit breakers in both markets for the first time in history. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have plunged for two straight days, with their combined market value evaporating around 530 trillion won — Samsung Electronics shrank by 257 trillion won, and SK Hynix by 273 trillion won. Citigroup estimates that South Korean retail investors’ leveraged ETFs have accumulated losses of roughly $38.7 billion (about 56.3 trillion won). Meanwhile, South Korean investors’ margin balances have dropped by more than 30 trillion won from their peak, while the net amount of U.S. stocks bought by South Korean investors in July surged approximately 5.7 times month-on-month, signaling that capital is accelerating its exit from South Korean stocks and shifting to overseas markets.

According to South Korean media reports, South Korea’s stock market has seen a sharp, sustained pullback recently, shifting investor sentiment from the earlier fear of missing out (FOMO) to the joy of missing out (JOMO). South Korea’s KOSPI index once fell more than 12% today, while SK Hynix dropped over 17% to hit its largest single-day decline on record, and Samsung Electronics fell more than 13%. The declines were driven by factors including weakness in the U.S. semiconductor sector, the listing of Chinese storage chip maker CXMT, and SK Hynix’s underwhelming financial results. Meanwhile, liquidity in South Korea’s stock market has continued to cool. As of July 24, investor margin balances have decreased by approximately 31 trillion won from their June peak, and margin trading balances have fallen by around 6 trillion won from their high, reflecting a sustained exodus of leveraged funds from the market.