Foreign Buying North of ₩3T Lifts Kospi, 20 Minutes to the Close

Kospi's sitting at 6,977.94, up 2.42%, with twenty minutes left before the close. Kosdaq's only up 0.38% at 864.65, so the gap between the two is wide today. On the Kospi side foreigners bought north of ₩3 trillion while institutions sold off more than ₩1 trillion, and that tug-of-war is basically what's showing up as the index gap. Last US session (8/14) closed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both slightly in the red, so today's Kospi move looks less like it's riding that lead and more like foreign money is just pushing it up on its own, and with the won at 1,416.48 and the dollar index slipping too, the overall rate and credit backdrop feels friendly. My book's got Pungsan +18.7% and Samsung Electronics +15.2% grinning wide, KT&G +1.0%, Isu Petasys -1.9%, and with twenty minutes left I'm watching whether that foreign buying holds all the way to the bell.