U.S.-driven tightening concerns and Middle East geopolitical risks combined to send the KOSPI plunging more than 3% in early trading, but the index staged a successful reversal, powered by share buybacks from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.<\/p>\n
According to the Korea Exchange on the 31st, the KOSPI closed up 31.14 points (0.46%) at 6,820.02. The index opened down 175.30 points (2.58%) at 6,613.58 and at one point slid to the 6,547 level, putting the 6,500 support line in jeopardy. However, the index rapidly recovered losses in the afternoon, turning positive just before the close to reclaim the 6,800 level.<\/p>\n
The direct catalyst for the weak open was hawkish commentary from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh. In his keynote address at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium in Wyoming on the 28th, he expressed strong vigilance on inflation and highlighted the possibility of a September rate hike. The fallout sent all three major New York indices lower, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunging 3.47%.<\/p>\n
Adding to the pressure, China’s CXMT reported first-half revenue surging 874% year-over-year, raising concerns that expanded supply of commodity DRAM could weigh on the pricing power of the three incumbent memory makers. Rising international oil prices amid renewed U.S.-Iran military tensions over the weekend also dampened investor sentiment.<\/p>\n
However, the mood shifted in the latter half of the session. Buying by Other Corporations\u2014presumed to be large-scale share buybacks by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix\u2014firmly supported the index’s downside. Other Corporations net purchased a total of 1.58 trillion won (approximately $1.2 billion) on the main KOSPI market. Within the electrical and electronics sector alone, net buying reached 1.55 trillion won (approximately $1.1 billion). Net purchases of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix by Other Corporations totaled 509.7 billion won (approximately $372.1 million) and 1.04 trillion won (approximately $756.1 million), respectively.<\/p>\n
In contrast, retail investors, foreigners, and institutions all remained net sellers. Retail investors net sold 144.3 billion won (approximately $105.3 million), foreigners 639.9 billion won (approximately $467.2 million), and institutions 793.1 billion won (approximately $579.0 million). Foreigners net sold 338.2 billion won (approximately $246.9 million) of SK Hynix, making it the top net-sold stock, while Samsung Electronics (594.5 billion won) and SK Hynix (509.0 billion won) ranked first and second among institutional net-sold stocks.<\/p>\n
Lee Kyung-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities, said, “With Other Corporations’ net buying supporting the downside of the top two semiconductor names, large-cap chip stocks recovered intraday losses, driving a weak-open, strong-close pattern in the South Korean market.” He added, “As the rise in U.S. Treasury yields subsided, excessive caution eased, and expectations for August export data due on the 1st of next month also played a role.”<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics (005930) opened down 3.11% at 249,000 won (approximately $180) and slipped to 246,000 won (-4.28%) shortly after the open, but steadily narrowed losses before turning positive in the afternoon to close up 1.17% at 260,000 won (approximately $190). SK Hynix (000660) also tumbled to 1.58 million won (-4.60%) in early trading but subsequently showed a steady upward trajectory, closing up 1.27% at 1.67 million won (approximately $1,200).<\/p>\n
Among large-cap stocks, Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150) rose 2.60%, LG Energy Solution (373220) gained 2.16%, Samsung Biologics (207940) added 2.15%, Hyundai Motor (005380) climbed 1.00%, KB Financial (105560) advanced 0.99%, and SK Square (402340) rose 0.88%. On the downside, Hanwha Aerospace (012450) fell 4.75% and Doosan Enerbility (034020) dropped 6.46%.<\/p>\n
The KOSDAQ index showed relatively weak performance, closing down 4.12 points (0.49%) at 834.29. The index opened down 2.00% at 821.67 and at one point slid toward the 800 level before significantly narrowing losses to close in slightly negative territory. Retail investors net purchased 255.3 billion won (approximately $186.4 million), while foreigners and institutions net sold 54.2 billion won (approximately $39.6 million) and 201.5 billion won (approximately $147.1 million), respectively.<\/p>\n
Alteogen (196170), the largest KOSDAQ stock by market capitalization, closed down 3.91% at 307,500 won (approximately $220), while EcoPro (086520) rose 1.22% to 91,300 won (approximately $67). Other gainers included EcoPro BM (247540) up 2.20%, Rainbow Robotics (277810) up 0.99%, EO Technics (039030) up 1.38%, and Simmtech (222800) up 5.29%.<\/p>\n
In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won-dollar exchange rate closed the regular session down 3.9 won at 1,368.6 won. This marks the lowest regular-session closing level in over 13 months, since July 24 of last year (1,367.2 won).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics plans to buy back 15 trillion won (approximately $11.0 billion) worth of its own shares on the open market from the 24th through November 21, while SK Hynix plans to buy back 40 trillion won (approximately $29.2 billion) from the 20th through November 19. The two companies’ remaining buyback capacity is estimated at approximately 45 trillion won (approximately $32.9 billion), and Other Corporations have now extended their net buying streak to nine consecutive trading days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S.-driven tightening concerns and Middle East geopolitical risks combined to send the KOSPI plunging more than 3% in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[645,891,8719,11824,336,335,65268,68747,127,276,4986,275,850],"class_list":["post-138089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-cxmt","tag-daishin-securities","tag-federal-reserve","tag-kevin-warsh","tag-kosdaq","tag-kospi","tag-lee-kyung-min","tag-other-corporations","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-share-buyback","tag-sk-hynix","tag-won-dollar-exchange-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}