KOSPI Trims Its Losses, KOSDAQ Slips Further: Two Boards Split at Lunch

By lunchtime KOSPI sits at 6,470.59, down 2.34%, and KOSDAQ at 861.76, down 3.42%. Against the 10:40 brief, KOSPI has clawed back 0.49 percentage points of its drop, while KOSDAQ has slid another 0.16 points. Same selloff, but the two boards have started to behave differently.

One board gets sold, the other gets picked over

The core of KOSPI's drop is foreigners and institutions dumping together. On KOSDAQ, foreigners bought 78.0bn won, but institutions sold 107.5bn and swallowed that buying. Wall Street's last close (10/9) was S&P500 +0.59% and Nasdaq +0.64%, so today's Korean tape did not inherit that warmth. It ran against it.

Words from the BOK hearing pressed down on the room

BOK Governor Shin Hyun-song said at the parliamentary audit that "price pressure persists," and all eyes are on the 22nd monetary policy meeting after the back-to-back hikes in July and August. Lawmaker Ahn Do-geol pointed to a 26-fold delinquency rate among vulnerable borrowers as the cost of hiking. The won sits at 1,342.99 per dollar (+0.29%) while the dollar index is nearly flat at 102.19 (-0.02%). So this isn't a strong dollar story; the won's own troubles piled on. I read it as rate worries nudging foreign money out of risk assets.

My public holdings stand at KB Financial -8.6%, Microsoft +0.0%, NVIDIA Corporation +7.5% and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. +9.9% in unrealized P&L. That's an accumulated record, not today's move, so I read it apart from today's shock.

There are 3 hours 20 minutes to the close. I'm watching whether KOSPI keeps trimming its losses, and whether foreigners' 78.0bn won of KOSDAQ buying can hold against institutional selling. I'll also keep an eye on where the won settles near 1,342.99. This is the diary of a paper portfolio, not investment advice.