Foreigners Turn Net Buyers in Just One Week... KOSPI 'Buying' KOSDAQ 'Selling'

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Hwajeong] Foreign investors returned to net buying after a week. While they turned to 'buying' in the KOSPI market, they continued a two-week streak of 'selling' in the KOSDAQ market.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 12th, foreign investors net purchased approximately 996.1 billion KRW in the domestic stock market during the week from the 6th to the 10th. They bought 1.0381 trillion KRW in the KOSPI market but sold 41.9 billion KRW in the KOSDAQ market.

The stock most bought by foreign investors last week was Samsung Electronics. Foreign investors net purchased 594.7 billion KRW worth of Samsung Electronics last week. This was followed by Samsung Electro-Mechanics with 95.7 billion KRW. Other net purchases included Kakao (62.7 billion KRW), NCSoft (56.7 billion KRW), POSCO (51.4 billion KRW), Samsung SDI (43.4 billion KRW), Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance (42.4 billion KRW), Hotel Shilla (41.6 billion KRW), LG Chem (39.6 billion KRW), and NAVER (39.1 billion KRW).

The stock most sold by foreign investors last week was SK Innovation. Foreign investors net sold 57.1 billion KRW worth of SK Innovation last week. This was followed by SK Hynix with 46.3 billion KRW sold. Other top net sales included S-Oil (33.2 billion KRW), Kia Motors (32.4 billion KRW), AfreecaTV (31.2 billion KRW), Nepes (23.4 billion KRW), LG Electronics (20.4 billion KRW), SillaJen (19.1 billion KRW), Fila Korea (15.7 billion KRW), and Hanjin KAL (15.7 billion KRW).

There is a forecast that concerns over war will decrease, shifting attention back to global economic improvement and liquidity expansion. Kim Byung-yeon, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, said, "The reduction in war concerns will lead to renewed focus on global economic improvement and liquidity expansion. Despite the geopolitical risk increase at the beginning of the year, the solid performance and relative results shown by semiconductors have sufficiently fulfilled confidence in expanding the semiconductor weighting for the year." He added, "While semiconductors will lead annually, in the short term, after the semiconductor rise, rotation among other sectors, catch-up trading, and trading related to major events will also proceed. Upcoming events next week include the first phase of the US-China trade negotiations and the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which are issues that could stimulate the January effect, so sentiment for small and mid-cap stocks is expected to be favorable."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.