The Kospi and Kosdaq indexes are displayed on a board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Monday. The Kospi closed up 40.89 points, or 0.65 percent, at 6,299.66, while the Kosdaq ended up 55.66 points, or 6.97 percent, at 854.47. [Yonhap]
The Kospi and Kosdaq indexes are displayed on a board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Monday. The Kospi closed up 40.89 points, or 0.65 percent, at 6,299.66, while the Kosdaq ended up 55.66 points, or 6.97 percent, at 854.47. [Yonhap]

The Kospi climbed to just below the 6,300 mark on Monday despite heavy foreign net selling, while the Kosdaq surged nearly 7 percent to reclaim the 850 level on combined institutional and foreign buying. As large-cap semiconductor stocks retreated amid wariness over the rise of a Chinese memory chipmaker, buying spread into pharmaceutical and biotech stocks and semiconductor materials, parts and equipment — triggering a buy-side sidecar on the Kosdaq during the session.

According to Korea Exchange, the Kospi closed up 40.89 points, or 0.65 percent, at 6,299.69. The index opened 47.56 points, or 0.76 percent, higher at 6,306.33 but gave back some of its gains during the session.

On the main Kospi market, foreigners net-sold 1.49 trillion won ($1.05 billion). Institutions and retail investors net-bought 567.5 billion won and 899.8 billion won, respectively, providing support for the index.

Among large-cap stocks, Samsung Electronics fell 1,000 won, or 0.43 percent, to close at 230,000 won, while SK hynix dropped 2,000 won, or 0.14 percent, to 1.42 million won. SK Square (up 1.06 percent), LG Energy Solution (up 2.08 percent), Hyundai Motor (up 3.16 percent), Samsung Biologics (up 0.84 percent) and Hanwha Aerospace (up 5.01 percent) all gained, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics (down 0.31 percent) and KB Financial Group (down 2.33 percent) declined.

On Friday, all three major US indexes rose as weak employment data eased concerns about further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.28 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500 rose 0.62 percent and the NASDAQ Composite climbed 1.30 percent. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also surged 2.56 percent.

The US Department of Labor reported that nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, far below the market consensus of a 100,000 increase. The weak jobs data reduced the likelihood of further Fed rate hikes, boosting investor appetite for risk assets.

Large-cap semiconductor stocks underperformed domestically, however. Overnight reports that Apple is testing memory chips from China's CXMT in products including iPhones and MacBooks rekindled caution toward the domestic semiconductor sector, sending both Samsung Electronics and SK hynix lower.

The Kosdaq ended up 55.66 points, or 6.97 percent, at 854.47. A buy-side sidecar was triggered at around 9:50 a.m., suspending program buy orders for five minutes after the Kosdaq 150 futures and the Kosdaq 150 index both surged sharply. At the time of activation, the futures were up 83.30 points, or 6.05 percent, and the index was up 85.63 points, or 6.25 percent, from the previous close. The Kosdaq had already seen buy-side sidecars on three consecutive trading days — Aug. 3, Tuesday and Wednesday — following one on July 31.

The Kosdaq also diverged from the Kospi in terms of investor flows. Institutions and foreigners net-bought 566.1 billion won and 103.1 billion won, respectively, on the Kosdaq market, while retail investors net-sold 672.9 billion won.

All 30 of the top Kosdaq stocks by market capitalization closed higher. Alteogen, the Kosdaq's largest stock by market cap, surged 14.10 percent on news that global asset manager BlackRock had increased its stake. Ecopro (up 8.72 percent), Ecopro BM (up 7.29 percent), Rainbow Robotics (up 5.16 percent), Jusung Engineering (up 13.30 percent), Leeno Industrial (up 7.61 percent), HLB (up 9.12 percent), ABL Bio (up 8.08 percent), Wonik IPS (up 11.44 percent) and LigaChem Biosciences (up 5.92 percent) also posted sharp gains.

The rotation into Kosdaq semiconductor materials stocks and pharmaceutical and biotech names was particularly pronounced as large-cap chip stocks took a breather. Bargain hunting in stocks that had fallen sharply in recent weeks also helped underpin the Kosdaq's relative outperformance.

"News that Apple is considering adopting CXMT's memory chips dampened already fragile semiconductor investor sentiment, weighing on large-cap chip stocks," said Lee Gyeong-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities. "Meanwhile, semiconductor materials, parts and equipment stocks held up relatively well while the large caps paused, and pharmaceutical and biotech stocks also rose, making the Kosdaq's relative strength quite clear."


hajun825@heraldcorp.com