Amid a sell-off by retail and institutional investors, foreigners displayed a large-scale "buy" trend, keeping the KOSPI index above the 2520 mark. The KOSDAQ index experienced weakness during the day but successfully turned upward ahead of the market close.
On the 9th, the KOSPI index closed at 2521.90, up 0.85 points (0.03%) from the previous transaction day. The KOSPI index dropped to as low as 2515.82 during the day, but slightly rose in the afternoon as foreign investors’ buying power pushed it up, maintaining the 2520 level for two consecutive transaction days.
On that day, foreigners purchased stocks worth 789.2 billion won on the securities market, while institutions and individuals sold net 611.9 billion won and 263.1 billion won, respectively. Since the beginning of this year, excluding the 2nd of this month, foreigners have shown a net buying trend for five consecutive transaction days, purchasing a total of 181.51 billion won worth of stocks during this period. This marks the first time since August 16 of last year that foreigners have net purchased stocks for five transaction days in a row.
Among the top market capitalization stocks in the securities market, SK Hynix rose by more than 5%, showing strong performance. After SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met with Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, at the "Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025" held in the United States, he remarked that the development speed of SK Hynix's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has surpassed NVIDIA's requirements, attracting considerable buying interest.
In particular, after Chairman Chey raised a model of the SKC glass substrate at the SK exhibition hall and stated, "I just sold this," expectations grew that the glass substrate could also be supplied to NVIDIA, leading to a nearly 20% surge in SKC's stock price.
On the other hand, LG Energy Solution dropped 4.02% after news broke that it had transitioned to an operating loss in the fourth quarter of last year.
Other top market capitalization stocks that rose included Kia (2.28%), KB Financial (1.29%), and Celltrion (0.54%), while Naver (-2.17%), Samsung Electronics (-2.09%), Samsung Electronics preferred stock (-0.32%), Hyundai Motor (-0.23%), and Samsung Biologics (-0.20%) experienced declines.
The KOSDAQ index also closed at 723.52, up 3.89 points (0.54%) from the previous transaction day. It is the first time the KOSDAQ index has risen above the 720 mark since Nov. 11 of last year (closing at 728.84). On that day in the KOSDAQ market, individuals and institutions net purchased 12.4 billion won and 4.4 billion won, respectively, while foreigners sold 22.1 billion won worth of stocks.
In the KOSDAQ market, the aftermath of Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, stating on the 7th (local time) that it will take a long time to commercialize quantum computers continued to be felt, leading to significant weakness in related stocks. iWIN PLUS fell by 20%, and AXGATE, ICTK, WOORIRO, and others saw declines in the 10% range.
Among the top market capitalization stocks in the KOSDAQ, all showed an upward trend except for HLB (-1.25%), Ecopro (-0.46%), and Alteogen (-0.32%). In particular, Samchundang Pharmaceutical rose by over 6%, while CLASSYS (4.57%), Enchem (2.83%), Rainbow Robotics (1.07%), LigaChem Biosciences (0.99%), and HUGEL (0.38%) also saw increases.
Lee Jae-won, a researcher at Shinhan Investment Corp., noted, "The KOSPI index has risen due to the inflow of low-price buying power for five consecutive transaction days, with sectors such as shipbuilding, power equipment, food and beverage, and boiler-related export stocks leading the gains," and added, "The KOSDAQ presented a differentiated performance in stocks influenced by individual issues amid the weak performance of large-cap stocks."
Meanwhile, as of 3:30 p.m. on that day, the won-dollar exchange rate recorded 1,460.5 won, up 5.5 won from the previous transaction day.