Hard-Fought Rebound After 8 Sessions... Forced Liquidations Snowball

[Anchor]

The KOSPI, which had been on a record-breaking downward trend, rebounded today. Foreign investors also bought domestic stocks after a long hiatus. However, the gain was modest compared to the recent drops.

First, let's go to reporter Lee Tae-gwon.

[Reporter]

The KOSPI succeeded in rebounding after 8 trading sessions.

Concerns over additional tightening eased following remarks by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh that he would not pre-judge interest rate decisions, helping the KOSPI surge over 4% at one point to surpass the 5,800 level.

However, weighed down by selling pressure from retail and institutional investors late in the session, it gave up some of its gains and closed up 2% at 5,668.

Foreign investors, who had continued a selling spree, purchased 340 billion won today, turning to net buyers for the first time in 9 trading sessions.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rose 2.6% and 0.8%, closing at 215,500 won and 1,272,000 won, respectively.

The KOSDAQ, where a buy sidecar was triggered amid a sharp surge, closed up 4.4% at 794.

This is interpreted as a rebound driven by some bargain hunting, fueled by perceptions that the stock market's recent drop was excessive.

However, analysts noted that the KOSPI's rebound was limited compared to its record 21% plunge over the past 7 trading sessions, and the scale of foreign net buying was also minimal compared to their daily average offloading of 2 trillion won.

[Lee Jin-woo / Head of Research Center, Meritz Securities : Today's rebound itself can be seen as having a rather typical characteristic of a technical rebound. Still, for now, we can find meaning in the fact that the market is stabilizing to some extent.]

Amid the recent slump in the domestic stock market, losses continue to mount for retail investors who bought stocks on borrowed money.

The volume of forced liquidations—where held stocks are automatically sold due to insufficient margin—was tallied at approximately 80.5 billion won yesterday, exceeding 80 billion won for two consecutive days.

The government stated that the domestic stock market is showing higher volatility compared to other markets due to differences in sector weightings, and announced that it will closely monitor whether the impact of stock market volatility spreads to the bond or foreign exchange markets.

(Video Reporter: Seol Chi-hwan | Video Editor: Won Hyung-hee | VJ: Lee Ji-hwan | Designer: Yang Ki-tae)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.