Samsung Takes a Dive, KOSPI Goes Down Alone With It

Right now KOSPI's down 2.35% hovering around 6,750, while KOSDAQ's up 2.18% holding near 819 — a total split screen. KOSPI's slide widened another 1.29 points since my last check-in, so today is clearly a KOSPI-only meltdown, not a broad one. The obvious culprit is Samsung Electronics, which cratered more than 7% intraday and dragged the whole index with it — institutions bought in for about 248 billion won but that wasn't enough to offset foreign selling. KOSDAQ, meanwhile, is holding its gain almost untouched even though both foreigners and institutions were selling there too, and given Wall Street closed calm last session, today's KOSPI weakness reads like a single-stock story rather than a market-wide one. My paper book sits unchanged by today's swings — ConocoPhillips +6.3%, Leeno +(-8.2%), Duksan Neolux -8.8%, Schlumberger +0.2% — and with three and a half hours left, I'm just watching whether Samsung's slide calms down.