South Korea's KOSPI rose 11.5% from 6,258.77 on August 7 to 6,977.94 on August 14, briefly touching 7,010.86 intraday for the first time since July 24, as foreign investors returned to net buying and Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led a semiconductor-driven rebound after last month's AI- and chip-linked selloff. Sentiment was helped by strong early-August semiconductor export data and CoreWeave's stronger revenue and higher capital-spending plan, yet Korea Exchange data still showed net short interest outstanding on the KOSPI at about 19 trillion won, or roughly $13.4 billion, as of this Tuesday, up 14% from 16.73 trillion won at the end of last month. KOSPI short interest had been about 15 trillion won at the end of February, dipped to around 12 trillion won in early March, and climbed to roughly 23 trillion won in early June before falling back and turning higher again. Although the KOSPI was up about 6% for the month and the KOSDAQ about 20%, flows were concentrated in large-cap chip names, leaving investors wary that gains had come too quickly amid profit-taking risk and uncertainty over whether the semiconductor cycle has peaked.