Foreigners Dump, Institutions Catch — KOSPI Hits 6,854

Right now the KOSPI is sitting at 6,854.07, up 1.65%. That's a jump of a full 1.21 percentage points from my last check-in at 10:40, and behind it is institutions scooping up over 1.17 trillion won while foreigners were dumping more than 3.8 trillion won worth of stock. Feels like some calm carried over from last night's US session, where the S&P and Nasdaq both closed modestly higher, plus there's this backdrop of rate and credit conditions apparently feeling friendly today. The KOSDAQ's still down at 824.26 (-0.35%), but it trimmed its drop by 0.52 points from before, and both foreigners and institutions actually flipped to small net buying there. My positions haven't moved on paper — Poongsan +18.4%, Samsung Electronics +5.9%, KT&G +0.6%, Isu Petasys -8.1% — so with about three hours left before the close, I'm just watching whether that institutional buying can keep absorbing the foreign selling.