South Korean chip stocks gained ground on Wednesday morning, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index seeing a sharp rise on the New York Stock Exchange ahead of Nvidia Corp.’s earnings announcement this week.

Samsung Electronics Co. shares were trading 3.15 percent higher at 55,600 won ($40.5) as of 10:28 a.m. on Wednesday. SK hynix Inc. shares also rose 2.72 percent to 208,000 won.

The rally comes after semiconductor stocks' strong performance in the U.S. stock market overnight, including Nvidia, which gained 3.21 percent.

Nvidia signed a contract to supply more than 18,000 of its latest AI chips to the Saudi Arabian company Humain on May 13th, 2025. The company is also participating in the construction of the world’s largest data center in the United Arab Emirates.

Expectations are high ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly earnings announcement, scheduled for Thursday Korean time.

Other chip stocks gained, including Broadcom Inc. (3.03 percent), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (2.97 percent), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (3.85 percent), and Qualcomm Technologies Inc. (2.25 percent), pushing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 3.38 percent.

In other market news, Doosan and Hanwha saw their shares soar on Wednesday morning, boosted by political pledges of corporate governance reform ahead of the presidential election that will take place on June 3rd, 2025.

Doosan Corp., the holding company of Doosan Group, saw its shares trade at 480,000 won as of 10:37 a.m., up 1.27 percent from the previous session.

Hanwha Corp.’s shares also rose 11.49 percent to 68,900 won, while Hyosung Corp.’s stock gained 7.03 percent to 62,400 won.

Governance reform has become a hot topic in the presidential election campaign.

Democratic Party of Korea candidate Lee Jae-myung vowed to strengthen shareholder rights by introducing shareholder loyalty obligations under the country’s Commercial Act. For his part, People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo proposed bolstering board independence by enhancing the expertise of external directors.

SK Securities researcher Choi Gwan-soon said in a recent report that “policies are being announced to support the domestic stock market ahead of the election,” adding that “if we remind ourselves that the valuation of stocks with low price-to-book ratios must be normalized to support the domestic stock market, it is necessary to pay attention to holding companies with high valuation appeal.”

The report also said that “if the issues of overlapping listing concerns and prevention of owner-centered decision-making are legally supplemented, the discount factors that holding companies have been receiving thus far will be eliminated, and we can expect a rise in stock price levels.”

Samsung Electronics shares closed at 55,900 won while SK hynix shares closed at 208,000 won. Doosan shares closed at 469,500 won, Hanwha shares closed at 67,500 won, and Hyosung Corp. shares closed at 60,000 won.

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