KOSPI Rebounds to the 6,740 Level... Foreign Investors Sold 3.8 Trillion Won, but Institutions and Retail Investors Stepped In [Financial News Closing Market Report]

[Financial News] KOSPI (Korea Composite Stock Price Index) closed higher after weathering a roller-coaster session that saw it plunge more than 4% intraday. Foreign investors dumped nearly 4 trillion won worth of shares, but institutions and retail investors absorbed the selling and pushed the index up. Samsung Electronics ended unchanged, while SK hynix erased all of its intraday losses and turned higher.
According to the Korea Exchange on the 25th, KOSPI finished at 6,742.74, up 45.78 points, or 0.68%, from the previous session.
The index opened at 6,535.93 and fell as low as 6,408.82 in early trading. Compared with the previous close, the intraday decline reached 4.30%. It then quickly recovered its losses and turned positive late in the session, climbing as high as 6,747.16.
On the supply-and-demand side, foreign investors continued heavy selling. They net sold 382.03 billion won in the main board market. Institutions, by contrast, net bought 117.29 billion won, while retail investors purchased 105 billion won, absorbing the foreign selling. Among institutions, financial investment firms net bought 107.28 billion won.
A rebound in large-cap semiconductor stocks also helped lift the index. Samsung Electronics closed unchanged at 257,000 won. Although it had fallen to around 245,000 won intraday, it recovered most of its losses in the afternoon. SK hynix ended up 0.90% at 1,678,000 won.
The KOSDAQ Index closed at 827.15, up 13.82 points, or 1.70%, from the previous session. It opened lower at 806.93 and slipped to 781.89 intraday, but later reversed course and finished at its session high.
Kang Jin-hyuk, senior researcher at Shinhan Investment & Securities, analyzed that "waiting for NVIDIA Corporation's earnings, profit-taking after Samsung Electronics' shareholder returns, and the approaching initial public offering (IPO) of China's YMTC weighed on sentiment toward memory stocks." He added that "U.S. sanctions on Iran and the tariff dispute with Canada are likely to have limited market impact given the timing of implementation, so liquidity and semiconductors remain the key variables for the stock market."


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