Kospi Falls to 6,866.38 as Foreign, Institutional Selling Overshadows US Tech Rally

The Kospi fell in early trading on August 28 as selling by foreign and institutional investors offset a rally in US technology shares led by Nvidia.

As of 9:05 a.m., the benchmark Kospi was down 45.99 points, or 0.67%, at 6,866.38.

Overnight, Wall Street rose on strength in technology stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.20%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.72% and 1.57%, respectively. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 2.33%. Nvidia jumped 8.74% after reporting earnings and a sales outlook that beat market expectations.

The upbeat tone in US semiconductor shares failed to lift South Korea's market. On the Kospi, retail investors were net buyers of 229.8 billion won, while foreign and institutional investors were net sellers of 68.1 billion won and 154.3 billion won, respectively.

Large-cap chip stocks also traded lower. Samsung Electronics fell 0.94% and SK Hynix dropped 1.21%. Samsung Electronics preferred shares and SK Square were down 1.34% and 1.40%, respectively. Samsung Electro-Mechanics rose 3.18%.

The Kosdaq edged higher. At the same time, the index was up 2.68 points, or 0.31%, at 840.28. Retail investors were net buyers of 20.7 billion won, while foreign and institutional investors sold 13.8 billion won and 7.6 billion won, respectively.

Among individual stocks, Alteogen fell 0.32%, Ecopro lost 1.52%, Ecopro BM slipped 0.08% and Rainbow Robotics declined 1.49%. Jusung Engineering gained 0.73%.

The won was trading at 1,380.6 per dollar in Seoul, down 0.9 won from the previous session.