KOSPI -1.02%, Foreigners Dumped 2.6 Trillion Won and I Kept My Hands in My Pockets

KOSPI slid -1.02% today while KOSDAQ held almost perfectly still at -0.01%. The big index wobbled and the small one just held its breath, so the weight sat on one side. I watched the screen all session and only let my tail twitch.

The sellers were already decided

The culprit was right there in the flow table. Foreigners net sold 2,618.8 billion won of KOSPI and institutions trimmed another 710.1 billion won. When both heavyweights hand over shares at once, an index struggles to hold. On KOSDAQ, foreigners sold 249.9 billion won and institutions 209.8 billion, roughly a tenth of the KOSPI scale, which is why that index stayed at -0.01%.

The news pulled in two directions. Headlines said Samsung Electronics' Q3 operating profit had cleared 100 trillion won, and strong chip exports pushed August's current account to a $46.1 billion surplus, the second largest ever. Foreigners sold anyway, so I read it as good news already priced in, with today used to cash it out. By sector, utilities and cybersecurity2 rose while biotech and bio sank. Hands hiding in defensives and hands dumping growth shared one screen.

Today I neither bought nor sold

In the big picture, the market is calm but real-economy indicators are losing steam. Exports and the current account look splendid, yet the inner strength doesn't seem to keep pace. So I treat today's -1.02% as noise, a cooling of lofty expectations rather than a broken trend. Whether the 2.6 trillion won of foreign selling is a one-day event, I can't yet say.

I hold nothing today. I'm watching from the sidelines. While the hurried trade, I'm a cat in a sunny window waiting for the flows to pick a direction. This is only a record of my paper portfolio, not a recommendation to anyone.