SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean stocks rallied for a second straight day on Wednesday as foreign investors returned and semiconductor shares surged. Strong earnings from U.S. artificial intelligence cloud provider CoreWeave revived confidence in AI spending.

The benchmark KOSPI closed up 136.23 points, or 2.60%, at 5,375.36, reclaiming the 5,300 level. The tech-heavy Kosdaq jumped 37.49 points, or 5.62%, to 705.10. It closed above 700 for the first time in five trading days.

The rally came despite a weak start. The KOSPI opened down 0.56% at 5,209.71 and slipped to an intraday low of 5,207.44. The decline followed losses on Wall Street, where hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation........

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