NVIDIA, which dominates the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, will hold the developer conference "GTC 2025" starting on the 17th. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, is expected to present a diagnosis of the AI market as well as the company's products at this event, which gathers the global media.
Attention from 5 million shareholders of Samsung Electronics is also expected to be focused on this event. Following the GTC 2024 event last year, the semiconductor sector, including Samsung Electronics, saw a significant rise in the domestic stock market. Investors hope that the momentum seen at the beginning of the year, driven by "CES 2025," when robotics and AI-related stocks surged, will be reproduced with GTC 2025.
However, domestic and international political uncertainties continue to dampen investor sentiment. The Trump administration in the U.S. has been showing erratic moves regarding tariff policies, and it is anticipated that the Constitutional Court's ruling on President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial will be announced soon.
Last week (March 10-14), the domestic stock market saw a slight increase. On the 10th, the KOSPI index started trading around the 2550 level and closed above the 2560 level on the 14th. Although there were diagnoses indicating that the U.S. stock market had entered a correction phase with significant declines, our stock market is evaluated to have performed relatively well.
In addition to the radical tariff policies pouring out from the U.S. administration, President Donald Trump noted that the economy has entered a transitional phase, causing the global stock market to take a hit. The U.S. stock market fell sharply.
As a result, the stock market experienced a drop of over 2% during trading on the 11th but managed to reduce the intraday decline, and on the 12th, it rebounded even more significantly. It showed a slight decline for two consecutive days starting from the 13th, but appeared to support the 2560 level.
The ongoing tariff war is expected to exert pressure on the stock market this week as well. Observations have emerged that the ruling date for President Yoon's impeachment trial is approaching. There is also a possibility that the ruling result may impact the domestic stock market.
Moreover, foreign investors, considered "big hands," are continuing to sell off. Last week, in the securities market, foreign investors showed a selling trend every day except for the 12th. On the 11th, foreign investors sold off over 1.5 trillion won.
NH Investment & Securities expects that the KOSPI index will move between 2500 and 2650 points this week.
In a challenging economic environment, the event that investors will focus on this week is NVIDIA's AI conference GTC 2025. The GTC, held annually by NVIDIA, is an event that introduces innovative technologies in various fields such as robotics, computing, and automotive on the theme of AI and shares knowledge. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are also planning to participate and unveil the latest AI memory and solutions.
As the defense and shipbuilding sectors, which had been leading the domestic stock market this year, have stalled, the semiconductor sector showed an upward trend last week. Attention will be on whether the GTC 2025 event, held from the 17th to the 21st, will further uplift the semiconductor sector.
Na Jeong-hwan, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, said, "Recently, the AI momentum is wavering due to U.S. tariffs and recession concerns, but there have been cases in the past where the AI investment momentum sustained following Jensen Huang's keynote speech," adding, "Jensen Huang's keynote speech is likely to have a positive impact on semiconductor and AI-related stocks."