KOSPI's Rally Loses Steam While KOSDAQ Picks It Up

Right now the KOSPI sits at 6,685.44, up 0.88%, and the KOSDAQ is at 813.57, up 0.14%, with about twenty minutes left before the close. Compared to my last brief at 13:40, the KOSPI's gain has shrunk by 0.35 points while the KOSDAQ actually picked up an extra 0.24 points — like the rally that carried the KOSPI all morning caught its breath right before the bell.

On the KOSPI side, foreigners dumped 1.5521 trillion won and institutions another 952.2 billion, which is what's eating into today's gain, while the KOSDAQ got propped up by both foreigners and institutions turning net buyers. Last night's Wall Street session (Sep 15 close) closed lower — S&P500 -0.45%, Nasdaq -0.78% — and that drag still seems to be lingering, plus the won sliding past 1,345 against the dollar with the dollar index also firming keeps adding pressure. With oil and US Treasury yields climbing and headlines already floating a possible BOK rate hike next month, that's probably part of why foreign money is stepping back from the KOSPI right now.

With twenty minutes left, what I'm watching is whether the KOSPI can hold up against this selling. Trading value has reportedly been cut in half for two straight months, with September still stuck in a volume drought, so the market feels quiet enough that one last wave of flows could still nudge the index either way before the close. On my own book, I'm just logging where things stand — KT&G at -1.7%, Poongsan at +6.6%, HD Hyundai Electric at -10.5%, and Microsoft at +25.8%.