Global Markets
Foreign selling of chipmakers drags the Kospi down 3% and Asia lower
SK Hynix slid on worries about a possible US listing of its Solidigm unit, while China left lending rates unchanged.
HedgeWeekly News Desk ·
South Korean stocks led Asian markets lower on Tuesday as foreign investors resumed selling chipmakers, wiping out much of the Kospi's Monday rebound. The index was down 3.2% at 5,587.27 by 10:30 a.m. in Seoul after touching 5,493.24 earlier, and the Kosdaq fell 2.7%.
By mid-morning, foreign investors had sold a net 605.8 billion won (about $456 million) of Kospi shares and institutions 470.7 billion won, outweighing 832.1 billion won of retail buying. SK Hynix fell 3.6% to 1,231,000 won and dropped under 1.2 million won at one point, its weakest level in close to six months, amid concern that a possible US listing of its Solidigm NAND business could pull capital away from the parent. Samsung Electronics lost 1.5%. Power-equipment and defense names also fell hard, with LS Electric down 6.38% and Hyundai Rotem down 12.7%.
The weakness spread across the region. Japan's Nikkei 225 lost about 0.6% to 64,512, with SoftBank Group down about 3.3% early, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped about 1%. The Shanghai Composite eased about 0.5% after the People's Bank of China held its one-year and five-year loan prime rates at 3.0% and 3.5%, the 17th month in a row without a change, and set the yuan's daily midpoint at 6.7200 per dollar, its strongest fix since February 2023.
The declines came even though the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.61% on Monday. Rising government bond yields in major economies, partly tied to political turmoil in France, added to pressure on riskier assets. The Kospi had gained 1.76% on Monday after President Lee Jae Myung called Korean stocks undervalued, following a 16% slide earlier in October.