▸ Semi­con­ductor shares rally glob­ally, lift­ing Seoul stocks to all-time high

▸ Stoxx Europe 600 bench­mark hits second con­sec­ut­ive record peak

▸ Weak debt auc­tion pushes Japan­ese bond yields to highest level since 2008

A rally in chip shares car­ried European and South Korean equity indices to record highs yes­ter­day.

Semi­con­ductor stocks climbed glob­ally after SK Hynix and Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics — the two biggest South Korean chip­makers — signed a let­ter of intent with OpenAI to sup­ply the com­pany’s $500bn data centre project, dubbed “Star­gate”.

Shares in SK Hynix and Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics rose 9.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respect­ively.

Sen­ti­ment towards the sec­tor was also boos­ted by OpenAI com­plet­ing a deal that val­ues the com­pany at $500bn, mak­ing it the world’s most valu­able privately owned com­pany.