Kospi opens above 8,300

Retail investors buy on Korea Exchange

Samsung Electronics surges nearly 10%

Kosdaq also rises

The Kospi is displayed on a board at the dealing room of Hana Bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
The Kospi is displayed on a board at the dealing room of Hana Bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

The Kospi rebounded more than 4% during trading Wednesday, recovering above the 8,500 level.

As of 9:46 a.m., the benchmark index stood at 8,560.58, up 354.55 points, or 4.35%, from the previous session.

The index opened at 8,356.79, a gain of 152.95 points, or 1.86%, and continued to extend its advance.

Retail investors led the recovery on the Korea Exchange with net purchases of 698.1 billion won ($455 million), while foreign and institutional investors were net sellers of 618.3 billion won and 125.3 billion won, respectively.

Overnight on Wall Street, all three major indexes closed lower amid broadening selling in global semiconductor stocks and caution over Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.09%, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.44% and 2.22%, respectively.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 7.87%.

The domestic market drew bargain hunters, however, after Tuesday's record plunge. "On Wednesday, the domestic market is expected to open higher and recover a portion of Tuesday's losses, driven by technical buying and bargain hunting amid the perception that the sharp drop in semiconductor stocks on Wall Street had already been priced in during the previous session's sell-off," said Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities.

Most large-cap stocks were trading higher. Samsung Electronics rose 9.68% to 340,000 won, and its intraday market cap of 196.7 billion won surpassed that of SK Hynix, reclaiming the top spot in market capitalization.

SK Hynix was up 3.84% at 2,653,000 won.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung C&T also advanced, rising 3.77%, 2.71% and 14.07%, respectively. SK Square and LG Energy Solution bucked the trend, falling 3.33% and 1.10%.

The Kosdaq was up 7.08 points, or 0.79%, at 898.60 at the same time, paring gains after opening at 905.13, a rise of 13.61 points, or 1.53%.

On the Kosdaq, retail investors and institutions were net buyers of 21 billion won and 78.8 billion won, respectively, while foreign investors were net sellers of 96.3 billion won.

Among top Kosdaq-listed stocks by market cap, Alteogen rose 3.15%, Ecopro gained 3.20%, Rainbow Robotics climbed 3.98% and Kolon TissueGene advanced 4.83%.


moon@heraldcorp.com