Kospi falls for 6th straight session, barely holds 6,000 as foreign selling persists

The Kospi fell for a sixth consecutive session Wednesday after erasing an intraday gain of more than 2%, extending its longest losing streak in over two years. The benchmark index has shed more than 14 percent over the past six trading days.

Persistent foreign selling, rising global oil prices, caution ahead of a key US inflation reading, and deepening concerns over the semiconductor sector left the index clinging to the 6,000 level.

The Kospi closed at 6,008.81, down 26.54 points, or 0.44 percent, from Tuesday. The index opened higher, rising 26.73 points, or 0.44 percent, to 6,062.08, and at one point climbed as high as 6,190.65 — a gain of 2.57 percent — before reversing course in the afternoon. It briefly touched a session low of 5,944.65, a decline of 1.50 percent, before recovering just enough to close above 6,000.

The six-session losing streak is the longest since a seven-session slide that ran from Sept. 3 to Sept. 11, 2024. From Oct. 6 through Wednesday, the Kospi has fallen a total of 994.93 points, or 14.21 percent.

Foreign investors continued to sell. After briefly turning net buyers early in the session on the main Kospi market, they reversed course and ended the day with net selling of 1.18 trillion won ($881 million), marking a seventh consecutive session of net selling. Retail investors also net sold 314.2 billion won, while institutions were net buyers of 808.4 billion won, providing some support for the index.

Overnight on Wall Street, all three major indexes closed lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.35 percent, while the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite declined 0.02 percent and 0.15 percent, respectively.

US stocks opened lower, led by declines in semiconductor and AI infrastructure shares, but pared losses after New York Federal Reserve President John Williams struck a dovish tone.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Williams said another rate hike this year appeared appropriate but that he did not see the need for further increases next year.

Against that backdrop, the Kospi opened higher Wednesday in an attempt to snap a five-session losing streak, but failed to sustain the momentum and closed in negative territory.

Samsung Electronics ended unchanged at 232,000 won. SK hynix fell 1.66 percent to close at 1.419 million won in the regular session. Both stocks had tumbled sharply on Tuesday — Samsung Electronics by 7.39 percent and SK hynix by 10.09 percent — and each surged roughly 4 percent early Wednesday on bargain buying before surrendering all of those gains.

Among other large-cap stocks, SK Square fell 0.58 percent, Hyundai Motor dropped 0.48 percent, and KB Financial Group declined 1.97 percent. Samsung Electro-Mechanics gained 0.81 percent, LG Energy Solution rose 2.93 percent, and Samsung SDI advanced 5.54 percent.

The Kosdaq also fell, closing down 13.15 points, or 1.57 percent, at 823.88 for a fifth consecutive session of losses. From Oct. 7 through Wednesday, the index has dropped 96.04 points, or 10.44 percent.

The Kosdaq opened down 1.13 points, or 0.14 percent, at 835.90 and swung between gains and losses throughout the session before ending lower. At its intraday trough, the index fell as much as 2.81 percent to 813.49.

On the Kosdaq, foreign investors and institutions were net sellers of 217.2 billion won and 181 billion won, respectively, while retail investors net bought 385.2 billion won.

Alteogen, the Kosdaq's largest stock by market capitalization, closed flat. Jusung Engineering fell 8.21 percent, Rainbow Robotics slipped 0.52 percent, and Wonik IPS dropped 6.83 percent. Ecopro gained 3.29 percent, Ecopro BM rose 2.92 percent, and LigaChem Biosciences advanced 0.92 percent.

The won strengthened against the dollar. As of 3:30 p.m. at the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won-dollar rate stood at 1,338.3 won, down 6.8 won from Tuesday's benchmark rate.