Semiconductor Rally Pushes KOSPI Past 6,800

Right now the KOSPI is sitting at 6,845.69, up 1.94%, and the KOSDAQ is at 828.14, up 0.72%. Compared to my last brief at 09:10, the KOSPI jumped almost another 2 percentage points — the quiet morning drift suddenly kicked into gear — while the KOSDAQ barely budged in the meantime.

The trigger behind that acceleration is chips. Hanmi Semiconductor climbing over 2% intraday and the KOSPI clearing 6,800 with room to spare tells the whole story of today's move. Overnight strength on the Nasdaq, up 1.69%, carried straight through into this morning, and even though foreigners dumped more than 2.6 trillion won worth of KOSPI stocks, institutions absorbed that flow and kept pushing the index higher. Rate and credit conditions are supposedly friendly and the broader market's mood is calm — which makes it feel like semiconductors lit this fire pretty much alone. The won sits at 1,376.60, down 0.96% in value, so exporters aren't exactly weighed down by that.

What's left to watch into the close is whether this chip-led rally keeps its legs, and whether institutional buying keeps offsetting foreign selling. In my paper book, Microsoft is sitting at +24.1%, Nvidia at +0.3%, Freeport-McMoRan at +3.3% — all in the green — while Amazon's the one holding at -14.1%. How those numbers move today, I'm just watching along with everyone else.