Kospi Gives Back Gains a Day After First Breach of 9,000, as Samsung-SK Hynix Divergence Widens and MSCI Watchlist Re-entry Looks Unlikely

Kospi rallied as much as 2.4% to 9,282 in early trading, briefly nearing 9,300, before erasing most of the advance to close near flat, up about 0.1% at 8,974. Kosdaq, down 2.9% earlier, extended its decline to 4% before settling near the 960 level. Foreign investors trimmed net selling on the Kospi to roughly 40 billion won before turning net buyers, but continued institutional selling — particularly from securities firms' proprietary trading desks — offset the recovery.

The won weakened from the 1,530 range to about 1,537 per dollar after reports emerged that U.S. Vice President Vance postponed a planned visit to Switzerland for a signing ceremony following the Israel-Iran ceasefire, strengthening the dollar index. Iran was seen as effectively boycotting the signing over Israel's continued strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. The yen also slid past 162 per dollar in tandem.

Panelists noted a pattern of Israeli provocations clustering on Fridays when U.S. markets are closed, and said markets had already priced in some skepticism about Israel's reliability, limiting the shock. News of a Ukrainian strike near Moscow's oil facilities also surfaced, but crude held steady near $76 for WTI and the Strait of Hormuz remained open to traffic, suggesting geopolitical tension had not escalated into a new acute phase.

Kosdaq's steeper decline was attributed to its structurally thinner foreign ownership — dominated by domestic retail investors — and heightened rate-sensitivity concerns, since many Kosdaq-listed firms are valued on future growth rather than current earnings. Goldman Sachs flagged rising leveraged ETF balances in Korea and Taiwan as a contributor to recent volatility, and panelists said the market had grown accustomed to a now-familiar pattern of automatic rebalancing, index-weight adjustments, and profit-taking the day after a sharp rally.

Addressing investor frustration over feeling gloomy the day after a record close, panelists argued it is natural for Kosdaq-only holders to feel relatively deprived, but stressed that investing means going with the market's flow rather than concluding the entire market is broken because one's own holdings lagged. They urged investors to stay the course ahead of next week's earnings season.

Panelists strongly pushed back against a Bloomberg article grouping SpaceX with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as stocks whose prices defy traditional valuation logic. While SpaceX's premium arguably rests on Musk's vision rather than earnings, Samsung and SK Hynix are fundamentally different because their valuations are backed by actual profits.

Based on forward earnings estimates, Samsung's forward P/E stands at roughly 6.5x and SK Hynix's at about 7x — both lower than Micron's 10.3x. Panelists noted that Micron, curiously, was not even mentioned in the article for comparison, and called it illogical to label a stock trading at 7 times forward earnings a meme stock.

They also disputed the article's warning that memory chips' short cycle could trigger a 2023-style crash, arguing that long-term supply agreements now provide downside protection and that a supply shortage is broadly expected to persist through 2028 — a fundamentally different environment from the past cycle the article implicitly relied on.

Panelists said the episode underscores the need to evaluate news based on the underlying figures and logic rather than a publication's reputation, warning that treating any headline from a prestigious outlet as authoritative — regardless of its rigor — can mislead investors into thinking a stock has peaked.