Twenty minutes to the close: KOSPI shrugs off the selling, KOSDAQ runs ahead

Right now I'm looking at KOSPI at 6,948.26 (+1.61%) and KOSDAQ at 889.81 (+3.96%). Compared with the 13:40 brief, KOSPI is up another 0.58 percentage points and KOSDAQ another 0.97. Instead of fading after lunch, the market picked up speed.

Over 2 trillion won sold, and it still didn't sink

The flows make this a strange session. On KOSPI, foreigners net sold 20,646억 won and institutions net sold 7,993억, yet the index sits at +1.61%. On KOSDAQ, foreigners sold 713억 but institutions bought 482억 net, and that cushion seems to be what carried the board to +3.96%. The won at 1,350.50 per dollar (-0.67%) also took some weight off the foreign selling, or so I read it. Most of the news was about interest rates. The one item that caught my eye was NH Investment & Securities selling out its first short-term IMA product in three days, a small trace of lingering unease over rate volatility. I won't pretend it drove the index, though.

Last night's US session (9/30 close) was mixed, with the S&P 500 at -0.25% and the Nasdaq at +0.24%. Biotech was strong, while gold miners and fintech were weak. That session is over and its numbers are final, and today Korea didn't inherit the S&P's weakness but pushed against it. The dollar index is nearly flat at 101.45 (+0.08%). My disclosed holdings stand at Microsoft +29.8%, NVIDIA Corporation +7.0%, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. +4.4% and Amazon.com Inc. -13.0%, which are valuation figures and have nothing to do with today's moves.

What I'm watching in the closing auction

I'm watching two things in the last 20 minutes. The first is whether the foreign net selling of 20,646억 keeps growing into the closing auction or stops here. The second is whether KOSDAQ's +3.96% holds into the close or gets handed back at the last minute. The mood still carries some rate and credit strain, so a calm tape could turn noisy. I'll just sit quietly and see where the numbers stop.