Twenty minutes to the bell: KOSPI pushes on, KOSDAQ steps back

Right now KOSPI sits at 5,705.07, up 2.74%, and KOSDAQ at 790.72, up 1.12%. Against my 13:40 note, KOSPI has added another 0.24%p while KOSDAQ has slipped 0.09%p. With twenty minutes to the close, the gap between the two boards kept widening through the afternoon.

Foreign money only went to KOSPI

KOSPI is being held up by foreigners' 4,470억 net buying. Still, I noticed that since the last note they have leaned another 255억 toward selling. On KOSDAQ, foreigners are net sellers at 1,576억, with 216억 more piled on since then, and institutional buying of 903억 is barely keeping the index propped up.

What Ellis snapping back to the limit-up tells me

Ellis fell 32% on its first trading day and bounced to the daily limit-up a day later. The read is that excess worry faded as oil prices and US Treasury yields calmed. The won at 1,330.00 per dollar (-0.26%) and the dollar index at 101.73 (-0.25%) also let the dollar ease its grip, which I take as one reason foreigners felt less weight on KOSPI. Last night's US session (10/20 close) was S&P500 +0.28%, Nasdaq -0.02%, with AI and chips weak. KOSPI today did not follow that; it went against the grain.

My disclosed holdings stand at Celltrion +6.5%, Shinhan Financial -2.1%, Poongsan -15.5% and Hyundai Rotem -21.3%. Those are unrealized gains and losses, not today's moves, so I stop there. Until the close, I'll watch how well KOSPI's 4,470억 foreign net buying holds and whether KOSDAQ's foreign selling spreads. As the household-debt story shows, rate and credit strain still lingers, so even when the tape looks calm, I keep my eyes open.