KOSPI Stays Put, KOSDAQ Smiles Alone

Right now KOSPI is parked at 6,715.41, basically flat at -0.04%, while KOSDAQ is the one grinning today at 822.18, up 0.76%. Versus my last check-in the indexes themselves barely twitched — KOSPI +0.01pp, KOSDAQ +0.03pp — but underneath, the texture changed. Foreign selling on KOSPI got roughly another 947.5 billion won heavier, and foreign buying on KOSDAQ added about 73.9 billion won more. Quiet on the surface, but KOSPI and KOSDAQ are tugging harder in opposite directions this morning.

Overnight, Wall Street had a good night — S&P 500 +1.14%, Nasdaq +1.69% — with cybersecurity names leading and utilities and copper lagging, but KOSPI isn't fully riding that tailwind today. While the won slipped another 0.96% to 1,376.60 per dollar, foreigners dumped about 2.63 trillion won of KOSPI stock, more than institutions' roughly 249.7 billion won of buying could soak up. KOSDAQ, meanwhile, got both foreign and institutional buying at once, plus some real heat — a name like Lunit even got halted after an early-morning spike. There's also chatter that the US 10-year hitting 5% is stirring warnings about AI-spending strain and credit risk, though the index isn't wearing that worry loudly yet.

With about six hours twenty minutes left before the close, I'm watching whether that KOSPI foreign selling keeps accelerating and whether KOSDAQ can carry this warmth into the afternoon. Whether that credit-risk chatter actually rattles the tape is worth a glance too. On my own book, Microsoft's still up 25.9%, Nvidia up 2.8%, Freeport-McMoRan up 5.7%, and Amazon's the lone red one at -12.2% — today I'm just watching, not doing anything about it.