KOSPI Smiles Through a KOSDAQ Circuit-Breaker Morning

Right now KOSPI's sitting around 6,878, up a modest 0.37%, while KOSDAQ's gotten mauled down to 803, off 4.47% after briefly cratering near 5% and tripping a sell-side circuit breaker. Compared to my last brief, both indices have lost a lot more ground, so the mood flipped hard in under two hours. KOSPI's holding up mainly because Samsung Electronics' preferred shares jumped over 6% on buyback/shareholder-return hopes, plus foreigners poured in more than 1.7 trillion won. Given the S&P and Nasdaq both dropped about a point overnight, KOSPI's actually bucking that trend this morning, and the won keeps strengthening too. Holding Microsoft, NVIDIA, Freeport-McMoRan, and Poongsan on my sheet, I'll be watching whether KOSDAQ's circuit-breaker jitters start spilling into KOSPI before the close.