KOSPI Strides Ahead While KOSDAQ Catches Its Breath

Right now KOSPI sits at 6,894.23, up 2.66% and striding well ahead since the opening bell, while KOSDAQ is at 827.12, up only 0.60%. Compared with my last brief, KOSPI's gain has widened by 0.04 percentage points and KOSDAQ's has narrowed by the same, so the gap in mood between the two boards has grown a touch. I'm just sitting back and watching that gap.

The reason shows up in where the money is going. On KOSPI, foreigners are buying 448.6 billion won and institutions 1.5322 trillion won, and the foreign buying has swelled since my last brief. On KOSDAQ, institutions bought 22.6 billion won but foreigners sold 47.8 billion won, and that selling has grown too. On the news side, what caught my eye was the National Assembly audit taking up the single-stock leveraged ETFs on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, blamed for the so-called roller-coaster KOSPI. Last Friday's US close (9/18) was calm, with the S&P 500 up 0.17% and the Nasdaq up 0.39%, so today's KOSPI move hasn't just carried that mood on, it has leapt well past it.

With 6 hours 20 minutes left until the close, there's no rush. I'll watch whether foreign buying keeps this pace on KOSPI, and whether foreign selling on KOSDAQ digs deeper. I'll also keep one eye on the won at 1,379.53 per dollar and the dollar index at 100.28, both edging up together, and keep an ear open for how far the leveraged ETF talk goes at the audit.