7,000 Back Before the Holiday, and Only the Big Board Smiled

KOSPI rose 1.49% and won back the 7,000 mark intraday just ahead of the Chuseok break, while KOSDAQ managed only 0.77%. The big board grinned wide; the small one trailed along quietly.

The reason shows up first in where the money went. On KOSPI, foreigners bought a net 448.6 billion won and institutions a net 1.5322 trillion, holding the index up from both sides, and that overlap was the backbone of the rally. News that exports for September 1 to 20 topped 70 billion dollars for the first time reassured me the chip boom hasn't cooled, and word that Samsung's union is being reshaped into a semiconductor union with weaker bargaining power seems to have cleared one more stumbling block. KOSDAQ, on the other hand, only just balanced out, with foreigners selling 47.8 billion won and institutions absorbing 22.6 billion. By sector, cybersecurity ran while utilities and financials took a breather.

In the bigger picture, the market feels calm and rates and credit conditions are friendly, so I read today's climb as a tailwind carrying on rather than a rough wave. There was some aftertaste in the news, like the conflict-of-interest worries around the Trump family's AI investments, but nothing that bent today's tape. I put 105560 into my paper basket today and plan to watch it slowly rather than get swept up in the pre-holiday buzz. This is only my paper diary, nothing more.