As U.S. Government Bonds yields stayed elevated and market-wide anxiety grew, the KOSPI opened on the 19th down 1% around the 7,400 level.
As of 9:15 a.m., the KOSPI index was trading at 7,358.01, down 158.03 points (2.1%) from the previous trading day. After opening at 7,425.66, the index has been widening its intraday losses.
Foreign investors, who sold more than 1 trillion won, are leading the decline. Foreign investors sold about 37 trillion won over nine trading days. Individuals and institutions are net buying 970 billion won and 34.5 billion won, respectively, helping defend the index's lower bound.
As high oil prices persisted due to Middle East-driven geopolitical risks, U.S. Government Bonds yields remained elevated, which appears to reflect the mixed performance of U.S. stocks overnight. U.S. President Donald Trump said "very serious negotiations are underway" with Iran, but Brent crude is still trading above $100 a barrel, and the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.59% the previous day.
Concerns about bottlenecks in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure also led the decline in U.S. tech stocks overnight. After Dave Mosley, Seagate chief executive officer (CEO), said at a JPMorgan conference that "it will take too long to build new factories," worries grew that the memory chip industry lacks the capacity to meet surging demand, accelerating the downturn.
Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.32% to close higher, but the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 and the Nasdaq fell 0.07% and 0.51%, respectively. Notably, Seagate dropped 7%, Micron Technology 5%, and SanDisk 5%, marking steep losses among tech stocks.
The U.S. market appears to be influencing Korea's market today as well. Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said, "With macro uncertainty such as the U.S. 10-year yield breaking above 4.5%, major semiconductor stocks at home and abroad, including Korea and the United States, are in a phase where profit-taking pressure is emerging on the pretext of their prior rapid gains."
In the domestic market, Samsung Electronics is down more than 3% and trading at 270,000 won, while SK hynix is down 2%, barely holding the 1.8 million won level. Hyundai Motor, LG Energy Solution, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics are also broadly weaker.
At the same time, the KOSDAQ index was trading at 1,106.8, down 4.29 points (0.39%) from the previous trading day. While foreign investors are net selling 80 billion won, individuals and institutions are net buying 70 billion won and 44 billion won, respectively.