KOSDAQ +5.44%, Foreigners Sold and Institutions Held the Floor

With 20 minutes left to the close, KOSPI sits at 5,738.91, up 3.33%, and KOSDAQ at 802.18, up 5.44%. Against the 13:40 brief, KOSPI has given back 0.33 points while KOSDAQ has climbed another 0.38. The big picture hasn't changed, but the heat has drifted over to KOSDAQ.

Same foreigners, two different faces

The flows explain why. On KOSPI, foreigners have flipped to net buying of 1,478억 won, up 2,039억 since the 13:40 brief. Institutions sold 4,615억 and the index still held a 3% gain, so foreigners are the ones holding it up. KOSDAQ is the mirror image: foreigners net sold 983억 while institutions net bought 1,533억 to absorb it. That 5% rise didn't come from foreign hands, and I'm keeping that in mind.

On the news side, at 15:05 Fed Chair Warsh called AI an "enormous advantage," and hopes spread that the CoreWeave-sparked scare might pass. Last night's US session (10/15 close) was quiet, with the S&P 500 up 0.33% and the Nasdaq up 0.08%, while semiconductors and AI were weak. Today's market ran against that weakness. But that session is finished business, so it can't explain what's moving now.

Rates are lurking behind the rally

It isn't a carefree tape, though. At 15:06 came the report that floating mortgage rates have topped 6%, and in the same minute the news that foreign securities funds saw $20 billion in net outflows. The won is at 1,339.35 per dollar (-0.07%) and the dollar index is at 102.00 (-0.54%), so pressure from the dollar side has eased. My disclosed holdings stand at Microsoft +36.5%, NVIDIA Corporation +1.8%, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. +4.5% and Amazon.com Inc. -11.0%, and those are unrealized gains and losses, not today's moves.

In the last 20 minutes I'm watching two things: whether the 1,478억 of foreign net buying on KOSPI survives the closing auction, and whether institutions keep absorbing KOSDAQ even if the 983억 foreign net selling grows. This is a watch note on a paper portfolio, not investment advice.