Kospi opens at 9,083

Tech selloff on Wall Street drags index lower

SK Square surges more than 6%

Kosdaq also drops more than 3%

The Kospi and other market indicators are displayed on a screen at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday. The Kospi opened down 31.01 points, or 0.34 percent, at 9,083.54, while the Kosdaq opened down 9.76 points, or 1.01 percent, at 958.64. [Yonhap]
The Kospi and other market indicators are displayed on a screen at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday. The Kospi opened down 31.01 points, or 0.34 percent, at 9,083.54, while the Kosdaq opened down 9.76 points, or 1.01 percent, at 958.64. [Yonhap]

The Kospi fell below the 9,000 mark during trading Tuesday, extending a broad decline driven by weakness in large-cap technology stocks.

As of 9:27 a.m., the benchmark index was at 8,983.95, down 130.60 points, or 1.43 percent, from the previous session. It had opened at 9,083.54 — a drop of 31.01 points, or 0.34 percent — before accelerating its losses.

On the main board, foreign investors were net sellers of 1.2 trillion won ($773 million) and institutional investors net sellers of 65.3 billion won. Retail investors absorbed the selling pressure with net purchases of 1.2 trillion won.

Overnight on Wall Street, stocks closed mixed as technology shares came under pressure. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 148.01 points, or 0.29 percent, to close at 51,712.71.

The S&P 500 fell 27.79 points, or 0.37 percent, to 7,472.79, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 351.33 points, or 1.33 percent, to 26,166.60.

Technology stocks led the decline. SpaceX shares tumbled 16.4 percent after the company announced plans to issue at least $20 billion in investment-grade corporate bonds — the first such offering in its history — to fund AI infrastructure development.

Alphabet also fell 5 percent amid reports that key AI researchers had left to join rivals.

Domestic large-cap technology stocks mirrored the weakness. SK Hynix, which claimed the top spot by market capitalization on Monday, was trading down 2.36 percent at 2.85 million won. Samsung Electronics fell 3.25 percent to 342,000 won.

Among the top market-cap stocks, SK Square gained 6.09 percent, Samsung Life Insurance rose 5.99 percent and Samsung C&T added 1.35 percent. Buying flowed into Samsung affiliates even as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix weakened.

On the downside, Samsung Electro-Mechanics dropped 6.69 percent, Hyundai Motor fell 5.85 percent and HD Hyundai Heavy declined 2.36 percent.

The Kosdaq was also under heavy pressure, falling 31.10 points, or 3.21 percent, to 937.30. It had opened down 9.76 points, or 1.01 percent, at 958.64 before widening its losses.

On the Kosdaq, foreign investors led the decline with net selling of 84.3 billion won, while retail investors and institutions were net buyers of 30.6 billion won and 51.4 billion won, respectively.

Among the top Kosdaq stocks by market capitalization, Ecopro BM fell 4.74 percent, Ecopro dropped 3.49 percent, Rainbow Robotics declined 6.49 percent and Jusung Engineering lost 4.60 percent.


moon@heraldcorp.com