▲ The real-time Kospi is displayed on the electronic board in the dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 25th. (Photo: Yonhap News)
The Kospi, which opened lower, changed direction during the session and closed on an upward note.
Today (the 25th), the Kospi finished the session up 45.78 points (0.68%) at 6,742.74 compared to the previous day.
The index started 161.03 points (2.40%) lower than the previous session at 6,535.93, briefly plunging to 6,408.82 (-4.30%) and threatening even the 6,400 mark.
However, it narrowed its losses during the afternoon session and ultimately turned upward.
As of 3:30 p.m. today, the won-dollar exchange rate in the Seoul foreign exchange market stood at 1,386.1 won, up 3.7 won from the previous day's base rate.
In the main bourse (Kospi market), foreign investors registered net sales for the third consecutive session up to today.
At the market close, foreign investors had a selling excess of 3.8199 trillion won.
Conversely, retail investors continued their buying streak from the previous day with a net purchase of 1.0517 trillion won, and institutions also drove up the index with a net purchase of 1.1707 trillion won.
Among institutional entities, other corporations recorded a net purchase of 1.5920 trillion won today, marking the second-largest net buying scale by other corporations on record.
Earlier, securities firms projected that Samsung Electronics' treasury stock purchases for employee stock compensation and SK Hynix's purchases for treasury stock retirement would be reflected in the supply and demand from other corporations.
According to the Korea Exchange, the all-time record for net purchases by other corporations in the Kospi market was set yesterday at 1.6375 trillion won.
For two consecutive days up to today, a record-breaking buying spree has emerged from the supply-demand subject known as other corporations.
Over the past five trading sessions, other corporations have net-purchased a total of 5.5524 trillion won in the Kospi market.
Overnight on Wall Street, major tech stocks declined, causing the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indices to fall by 0.76% and 0.28%, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.26%.
The downturn is interpreted as being driven by growing political regulatory pressure surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, along with additional economic pressure measures against Iran by the Donald Trump administration, which dampened investment sentiment.
In addition, following the listing of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) in the DRAM sector among China's two major memory companies, news that Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. (YMTC) also applied for an initial public offering (IPO) led to prominent declines in semiconductor stocks.
Major semiconductor shares showed weakness, including SanDisk (-6.45%), Micron (-5.83%), Western Digital (-5.24%), Seagate (-6.51%), and SK Hynix ADR (-4.92%), while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 2.70%.
Nvidia, which is ahead of its earnings announcement this week, fell 2.91%, extending its losing streak to seven consecutive sessions.
In the domestic stock market, the Kospi also showed a downward trend early in the session amid lingering disappointment over the unprecedented shareholder return policies of market leaders Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
However, as both stocks subsequently erased all of their intraday losses, the index also turned upward.
Samsung Electronics, the top stock by market capitalization, finished the session at 257,000 won, unchanged from the previous day's closing price (+0.00%).
The stock tumbled more than 3% right from the opening and briefly slumped to 245,000 won (-4.67%) in early trading, before shifting upward to reclaim the 250,000-won tier.
SK Hynix rose 0.42% to 1,678,000 won.
The stock opened down in the 4% range and remained weak for a while before also rebounding into positive territory during the session.
Although high expectations for unprecedented shareholder returns from both stocks formed last week, yesterday saw sharp drops of 8.70% and 3.41% for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, respectively, as a "sell-on" phenomenon followed the materialization of expectations.
Both stocks showed downward trends early today, but bargain hunting and treasury stock buying orders are interpreted to have flowed in afterward.
Among other large-cap stocks, Samsung Electro-Mechanics (3.34%), Hyundai Motor (1.69%), Samsung Biologics (0.76%), Samsung C&T (0.69%), and KB Financial Group (2.02%) advanced.
Amid some reports that the U.S. government proposed to South Korea a stake investment in its domestic nuclear power company Westinghouse, nuclear-related shares such as Doosan Enerbility (10.55%), KEPCO Engineering & Construction (20.27%), and Hyundai Engineering & Construction (14.87%) were also strong.
On its first day of re-listing following a corporate split, Hanwha finished trading soaring 17.40% compared to its opening reference price, while the newly listed subsidiary Hanwha Machinery & Services Holding surged to its daily upper limit (+30.00%) of 13,000 won during the session before ending with a slight gain of 0.10%.
Meanwhile, SK Square (-1.49%), LG Energy Solution (-3.45%), Samsung Life Insurance (-0.18%), Hanwha Aerospace (-0.27%), and Hyundai Mobis (-0.10%) declined.
Looking at Kospi sectors, construction (8.73%), machinery & equipment (6.74%), and electric & gas (3.26%) recorded the highest gains, while communications (-1.40%), pharmaceuticals (-0.89%), and entertainment & culture (-0.66%) remained weak.
A total of 647 stocks advanced in the Kospi market today.
Stocks that declined stood at 226, while 226 closed unchanged. (Wait, original text says 34 unchanged)
The Kosdaq index finished the session up 13.82 points (1.70%) at 827.15.
The index opened down 6.40 points (0.79%) at 806.93, widened its losses to briefly fall below the 800 line during the session, but subsequently narrowed the decline and turned upward.
In the Kosdaq market, foreign investors and institutions net-purchased 132.9 billion won and 15.1 billion won, respectively.
Retail investors were alone in recording a selling excess of 137 billion won.
Rainbow Robotics (2.25%), Jusung Engineering (7.71%), Wonik IPS (5.55%), Leeno Industrial (4.33%), and HLB (1.19%) showed strength.
However, the top three market-capitalization stocks on the Kosdaq market, Alteogen (-4.68%), EcoPro (-3.07%), and EcoPro BM (-3.85%), declined.
Hatchitech, a semiconductor manufacturer newly listed on the Kosdaq market today, plummeted 39.43% compared to its initial public offering (IPO) price of 23,000 won.
A total of 1,186 stocks advanced in the Kosdaq market.
Stocks that declined totaled 466, and 74 stocks finished unchanged.
Trading values for the Kospi and Kosdaq markets today were tallied at 24.0682 trillion won and 4.6945 trillion won, respectively.
The total trading value for the pre-market and main market of alternative trading system Nextrade amounted to 11.7831 trillion won.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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