South Korean equities found a floor in the first week of August after July's sharp swings, with the Kospi closing at 6,258.77 on August 7, down 0.60% on the day but recovering from the 5,590 level touched on July 30, while the Kosdaq climbed 10.98% week on week to 798.81. The move pointed to a clearer rotation trade as gains broadened beyond semiconductor names, helped by a retreat in leveraged ETF activity and a cooling in the VKOSPI volatility gauge. Bloomberg said the Kospi's 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio (PER, stock valuation metric) was 5.1 times, near an all-time low, but also cautioned that volatility remained high enough to keep global asset managers from rushing back. Brokers and global banks diverged on timing: JPMorgan kept an overweight call on memory semiconductors and said Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix could generate 16-20% shareholder return yields (dividends and buybacks as a share of market value) over two years, while Citi stayed neutral despite ranking South Korea first on a fundamental composite score across 12 countries. Investors are now watching whether SK Hynix's dividend and promised third-quarter shareholder return measures help revive foreign inflows, and whether July CPI (Consumer Price Index, an inflation measure), PPI and retail sales data in the United States, along with earnings from CoreWeave, Super Micro Computer and Applied Materials, revive semiconductor sentiment.