"Another rollercoaster today?"…With U.S. tech stocks down, will the KOSPI show mixed trading? [Preview of today's market]

Korea Economic Daily

Summary

It said the KOSPI market is likely to show a volatile 'wild swing' as U.S. tech and semiconductor stocks weakened.
In particular, semiconductor stocks such as NVIDIA saw price declines, and it noted that the domestic market is also likely to be impacted.
Researcher Han Ji-young advised dollar-cost averaging into established leading sectors such as shipbuilding and machinery, saying their profit growth momentum and earnings visibility are solid.

On the 11th, closing prices are being posted at the Korea Exchange in Yeouido, Seoul. On that day the KOSPI closed at 4106.39, up 33.15 points (0.81%) from the previous closing price, and the KOSDAQ closed at 884.27, down 4.08 points (0.46%) from the previous day. In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the dollar-won rate recorded 1463.3 won, up 11.9 won from the weekly closing price at 3:30 p.m. the previous day./2025.11.11. Reporter Kim Beom-jun

Overnight in New York, tech stocks were notably weak. Because the KOSPI market has a high weighting of semiconductor stocks and tends to follow the flow of U.S. tech stocks, the domestic market is expected to show a 'wild swing' again today following the previous day.

On the 11th (local time) in New York, the Dow rose 1.18% and the S&P 500 rose 0.21%. By contrast, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.25% to close the session. Overall investor sentiment improved on hopes that a U.S. federal government shutdown could be resolved, but tech stocks, which had risen sharply, underwent a correction.

News that SoftBank sold its entire stake in NVIDIA for $5.83 billion pushed NVIDIA's stock down nearly 3%. Other semiconductor names such as Broadcom and AMD also fell, causing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, composed of AI and semiconductor-related stocks, to drop 2.48%. AI cloud infrastructure firm CoreWeave also cut its earnings outlook, recording a decline of over 16%.

Funds exiting tech flowed into blue-chip sectors including healthcare. Eli Lilly and Amgen rose 2.27% and 4.57% respectively. Defensive stocks such as Walmart, Visa, and Coca-Cola also showed strength.

With U.S. tech stocks shaken, semiconductor names that support the KOSPI are likely to be affected. Although the KOSPI closed higher the previous day, it experienced repeated intraday swings, so the market is expected to ride a rollercoaster again today. The KOSPI had surged sharply on hopes of a U.S. federal government shutdown being resolved, but turned down in the afternoon as additional upward drivers were exhausted.

Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, forecasted, "Today the domestic market will start lower amid mixed U.S.-origin factors such as weakness in U.S. AI stocks including NVIDIA (-2.9%) and Micron (-4.8%), and positive earnings outlooks for AMD, and then, as semiconductor, shipbuilding, and defense-related leading stocks show differentiated intraday price movements, the index is likely to lack direction for the day."

She also advised dollar-cost averaging into non-semiconductor former leading sectors such as shipbuilding and machinery. The researcher said, "Although price volatility in the shipbuilding and machinery sectors has increased, their profit growth momentum and earnings visibility based on high order backlogs remain solid," adding, "In an environment where sector rotation is frequent as recently, opportunities for recovery in returns may exist even for former leading stocks that have gained price appeal."

Reporter Yang Ji-yoon yang@hankyung.com