KOSPI Plummets 3.7% Today, Raising Questions Over Rebound Potential

[Anchor]

The KOSPI plummeted 3.7% today (the 12th), recording its steepest decline since early last month. Amid a sustained selling streak by foreign investors, analysts note that the market has become increasingly vulnerable to external shocks as it struggles to find a buying force to fill the void left by the conclusion of Samsung Electronics' treasury stock buyback program.

Reporter Min Gyeongho has more.

[Reporter]

Starting the session down more than 0.7%, the KOSPI failed to gain momentum throughout the day and eventually gave up the 6,400 mark.

Ending down 3.65%, it marked the largest daily drop in about a month.

Foreign investors drove the market down by net selling approximately 2 trillion won, while institutions also offloaded about 110 billion won.

Only individual investors turned to net buyers, purchasing nearly 1.5 trillion won.

A direct trigger was cited as the 3.8% drop in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index—a stock price indicator for U.S. semiconductor companies—while the domestic market was closed for Hangeul Day.

Debates over investment overheating reignited after OpenAI's revenue came in lower than expected.

Although it was later revealed that the discrepancy stemmed from differences in accounting calculation methods, investor sentiment failed to recover, leading to drops of over 4% for both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Observers say that investors, having witnessed Samsung Electronics' shares fall even after its record-breaking earnings announcement last week, have become much more sensitive to negative news.

[Lee Jin-woo / Head of Research Center, Meritz Securities: When sentiment is poor, people only see the negatives. With justifications for an upward push weakening, the market is taking on a strong characteristic of drifting downward due to supply and demand dynamics.]

Supply and demand factors, such as continued selling by foreign investors and the conclusion of treasury stock buybacks by semiconductor giants, are also having a significant impact.

Samsung Electronics announced that it completed the treasury stock buyback worth approximately 15 trillion won, which began in August for employee stock compensation, on the 6th.

SK Hynix is also in the final stages of wrapping up its own treasury stock purchases.

[Kim Dong-won / Head of Research Division, KB Securities: Since Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have their earnings conference calls scheduled for late October, and major U.S. tech firms are also slated to release quarterly earnings, the mood is more of a wait-and-see approach until then...]

As companies sold off the dollars they earned from strong semiconductor exports, the won-dollar exchange rate temporarily hit the 1,320-won range in the afternoon, marking its lowest level in about two years.

(Video reporting: Lee Moo-jin, Video editing: Ahn Yeo-jin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.