[Anchor]

The KOSPI, which had been on a record-breaking downward trend, rebounded today. Foreign investors also bought domestic stocks for the first time in a while. However, the gains were relatively small compared to the recent drops.

First, reporter Lee Tae-gwon has the details.

[Reporter]

The KOSPI has successfully rebounded after eight trading sessions.

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

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

Foreign investors, who had continued a selling spree, turned to net buyers for the first time in nine sessions by purchasing 340 billion won today.

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

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

This is interpreted as a rebound driven by some bargain hunting, fueled by the perception that the recent drop in the stock market had been excessive.

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

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

Meanwhile, retail investors who bought stocks on borrowed money continue to see their losses mount amid the recent downturn in the domestic stock market.

The scale of forced liquidations—where holdings are automatically sold off due to insufficient margin—was tallied at approximately 80.5 billion won yesterday, exceeding 80 billion won for the second consecutive day.

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

(Camera Reporter: Seol Chi-hwan, Video Editor: Won Hyung-hee, VJ: Lee Ji-hwan, Design: Yang Gi-tae)