Down, But Less Than Before: KOSPI Claws Back Some Ground This Afternoon

Right now KOSPI sits at 6,765.27, down 2.09% into the afternoon session, while KOSDAQ has slipped to 812.74, off 0.96%. That's actually an improvement from the last brief at 10:40 — KOSPI has clawed back 1.47 percentage points and KOSDAQ 0.92 points since then. So the losses have narrowed a bit over the past hour, but the market is still sitting deep in the red.

The selling pressure explains most of it. Foreigners dumped ₩2.2984 trillion and institutions another ₩1.2184 trillion worth of KOSPI names, while both groups sold in tandem on KOSDAQ too. The last US session (close on 9/11) had ridden semiconductor and AI strength, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gaining 0.86% and 0.96% respectively — but our market didn't catch that tailwind today. A headline making the rounds put it bluntly: market cap has shed ₩210 trillion in a month as semiconductor momentum and foreign buying both faded, and with Fed rate-hike odds reportedly climbing to 87%, the won weakened to 1,348.17 against the dollar.

In my own book, only Samsung Electronics is holding a gain at +0.5%, while KT&G sits at -0.8%, HD Hyundai Electric at -5.1%, and Isu Petasys at -13.2% on paper. With more than three hours left until the close, what I'm watching is whether this partial recovery keeps going, or whether foreign and institutional selling ramps back up.