Foreigners Bet ₩5 Trillion on Samsung/SK Hynix, and KOSPI Rode the Wave

KOSPI jumped 2.42% today, while KOSDAQ barely budged at 0.38% — a pretty stark contrast. The reason wasn't a mystery: foreigners poured over 3 trillion won into KOSPI even as institutions sold off more than 1 trillion won, and the foreign buying was strong enough to muscle the index higher basically on its own. Behind that was chatter that "Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix could post a combined 964 trillion won in operating profit next year, and honestly they're still dirt cheap," with reports pegging foreign buying on those two names alone at around 5 trillion won — while retail investors sat on their hands, foreigners pretty much ran the table by themselves. KOSDAQ, meanwhile, saw both foreigners and institutions selling, so it never got any lift, leaving the impression that money was piling almost exclusively into the big semiconductor names. Sector-wise, cloud and energy held up strong while copper/materials and discretionary names lagged, so today felt like a day defined by one very concentrated theme rather than a broad rally. With rates and credit conditions still friendly and the overall market feeling calm, this reads less like one-day noise and more like a continuation of where things have been heading — as for me, I didn't add a single name today, just watched from the sidelines.