A dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, Monday / Yonhap
Korean stocks traded sharply higher late Monday morning as investors continued to snap up tech shares, offsetting a lack of progress in peace talks between the United States and Iran.
Opening a tad higher, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) was up 391.91 points, or 4.39 percent, to 8,858,26 as of 11:20 a.m.
Washington and Tehran have been negotiating over a draft agreement aimed at ending the conflict and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but the lack of a meaningful breakthrough over the weekend helped push oil prices higher.
Despite the lack of progress in the Middle East talks, tech shares rallied on expectations that the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven semiconductor boom will continue, lifting chipmakers and other AI-related stocks.
