South Korean stocks have historically performed better after the Chuseok holiday than before it, with the KOSPI rising in 15 of 22 five-session post-holiday periods analyzed by Daishin Securities from 2004 to 2025. The benchmark's average return was minus 0.05% before the holiday and 1.34% afterward, reinforcing the market's so-called weak-before, strong-after pattern. Samsung Electronics closed at 286,500 won on the 23rd after seven consecutive advances, gaining 15.3% from the 14th and approaching the 300,000 won level. The pattern reflects investors reducing risk before a prolonged market closure and redeploying cash once trading resumes. However, brokerages disagree on Samsung's outlook: Yuanta Securities Korea raised its target to 630,000 won on expectations that memory shortages could last through 2028, while Kiwoom Securities retained a 350,000 won target because commodity memory-price gains are slowing. Both identify high-bandwidth memory, or HBM (advanced memory used in AI systems), as a key growth driver. Analysts caution that seasonal patterns do not guarantee gains, with the U.S.-China summit, U.S. chip-export policy, August personal consumption expenditures data, Micron Technology's earnings, oil prices and Treasury yields among the factors that could determine the market's direction.