Jusung Engineering's stock rose 19.41% on Oct. 6 alone, closing at 283,000 won (about $211). That is about 9.3 times its 30,450-won (about $23) close on Jan. 2, the first trading day of the year. A company that ranked 57th by market value on KOSDAQ, Korea's second stock market, at the start of the year touched No. 2 again during trading that day.
The common reading is that it is "a stock that rose on hopes of orders for next-generation equipment." That's not wrong. But the key lies elsewhere. It wasn't just this one company: chip equipment and parts makers climbed to the top of KOSDAQ all at once. Hopes from the chip boom spread beyond the companies that sell chips to the stocks of companies that sell the machines that make chips.
- What does Jusung Engineering do, and how did it rise?
Jusung Engineering makes machines that coat chip wafers (the thin discs that chips are etched onto) with extremely thin films. Its signature technology is atomic layer deposition (ALD, a way of stacking films one atom-thick layer at a time).
There was more than one reason for the rise. In the third week of April, the stock jumped 75.99% in a week to 123,900 won (about $93) after a brokerage report said it could benefit from Tesla's solar equipment supply chain. When it surged on Oct. 6, news reports pointed to an improving chip market and hopes that memory makers would raise their capital spending. During trading on Oct. 1, its market value of 11.2252 trillion won (about $8.4 billion) passed EcoPro's, making it No. 2 on KOSDAQ.
Put simply, 1 million won (about $750) invested on Jan. 2 would have been worth about 9.3 million won (about $6,950) on Oct. 6 (hypothetical calculation).
- Why did chip companies go from zero to six?
At the start of the year, no chip company was among KOSDAQ's top 10 by market value. There were three on Sept. 7, and during trading on Oct. 1 there were six: Jusung Engineering, Leeno Industrial, Wonik IPS, EO Technics, Simmtech and HPSP. All of them sell equipment, parts or circuit boards to chipmakers.
The chain works like this. More AI data centers are built → expectations grow that more memory chips will be needed and their prices will rise → expectations grow that memory makers like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will spend more on factories and machines (capital spending) → that turns into expectations that the money will become sales for equipment, parts and board makers.
It is like a kitchen-supply store getting busy first when more restaurants open in town. The difference is that the store only does business once restaurant owners decide to open more places.
- How big is the equipment market in numbers?
Swiss investment bank UBS forecast that global sales of front-end chip equipment (machines used in the stage where circuits are etched onto wafers) will rise 27% this year to $147 billion, then another 35% next year to $200 billion (June forecast). It described this as the start of a long boom heading toward $250 billion by 2028.
Jusung Engineering's order backlog (orders received but not yet delivered) also more than tripled, from about 74.7 billion won (about $56 million) at the end of the first quarter to 233.6 billion won (about $175 million) at the end of the second.
Put simply, an equipment maker's order book is a ledger that shows ahead of time how much memory makers plan to expand their factories.
- Why did chipmakers and equipment makers split on the same day?
As of 1:47 p.m. on Oct. 6, foreign investors had net sold 1.3601 trillion won (about $1.0 billion) across KOSPI, Korea's main market, meaning they sold more than they bought. At the same time they had net bought 106.4 billion won (about $80 million) across KOSDAQ. That day Samsung Electronics closed down 1.09% at 273,000 won, and SK hynix closed down 3.10% at 1,784,000 won. Jusung Engineering drew buying from both foreign and institutional investors.
Samsung Electronics is due to report preliminary third-quarter results on Oct. 8, and foreign selling continued amid caution about swings before the release and uncertainty abroad. Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said the key is "whether foreign investors, who have recently been leaving, turn to net buying of chip stocks" after Samsung's preliminary results.
Put simply, on the same day and within the same chip industry, the big chipmakers' shares fell while shares of a company selling them machines soared.
- Why do equipment stocks sometimes fall first?
It already happened once this year. The stock fell 59% in a month, from 242,000 won (about $181) on July 1 to 98,300 won (about $73) on July 30. Second-quarter operating profit was 1.423 billion won (about $1.1 million), down 78.4% from a year earlier. News1 noted that orders don't turn into sales right away, and that if machines are delivered late to customers' plants, orders already won may not count as sales in that quarter.
After that, as hopes of a better chip market and more capital spending by Korean memory makers came back, the stock reached 283,000 won on Oct. 6. The next day, Oct. 7, it closed down 12.5% at 247,500 won (about $185), about 8.1 times its Jan. 2 price. What is different from July is that several KOSDAQ chip equipment and parts makers, not just one company, rose into the top ranks by market value together.
- BITPRESS Insight
If you see Jusung Engineering's ninefold rise as one company's luck, you miss where the money went. Even in the same chip boom, chipmakers and equipment makers can move in opposite directions on the same day, as they did on Oct. 6. On KOSDAQ this year, equipment and parts makers grew most visibly among the top companies by market value.
For people who own equipment stocks, what matters more than news that "chips are doing well" is how much more memory makers say they will spend on factories and machines. Equipment makers' sales follow those plans, and their stock prices move even earlier. That is why they can also wobble first at any sign that those plans are being delayed.
There is one test. First sort out whether the chip stock you own belongs to a company that sells chips or one that sells the machines that make chips. If it sells machines, its share price rides customers' next investment plans before it rides chip prices.
Sources
https://www.etoday.co.kr/news/view/2633094
https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2026100614142385002
https://www.newspim.com/news/view/20261001000511
https://www.g-enews.com/article/Securities/2026/10/20261006142558651844093b5d4e_1
https://www.newspim.com/news/view/20261006000063
https://newsroom.stockplus.com/breaking-news/37335
https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2026061115410755129
https://v.daum.net/v/20260425080009030
https://www.news1.kr/industry/sb-founded/6288077
https://finance.naver.com/item/main.naver?code=036930
Glossary
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) — A technique that builds a chip's circuits by stacking extremely thin films, one atom-thick layer at a time.
Capital expenditure — Money a company spends building factories and buying machines, which becomes orders for equipment makers.
Order backlog — The value of orders a company has received but not yet delivered, so they are not yet counted as sales.
Net selling / net buying — When a group of investors sells more than it buys it is net selling, and when it buys more it is net buying.
Materials, parts and equipment — A Korean shorthand for companies that supply materials, parts and machines to makers of finished products.
BITPRESS articles are information to help your investment decisions, not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or coin. Investment decisions and their results are your own responsibility.
