End of “Buy Korea”
The KOSPI rose to 2,039 points on October 28, and 2,059.58 on October 30.
Foreign investors stopped their buying streak in the Korean stock market after 45 days, causing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) to fall below 2,040 points.
On October 31, the index closed at 2,030.09, 1.43% or 29.49 points down from the previous session, although it started at 2,050.96, 8.62 points lower than the previous sessions’ closing price. The decline of the index was led by both foreign and institutional investors, who have been concerned about the uncertainties regarding the tapering of quantitative easing since the announcement of the result of the October FOMC meeting.
The net buying trend of foreign investors continued for 44 days, from August 23 to October 30. Although they bought some additional stocks during after-hours trading, this led to no net purchases. Their net-sales amount reached 27.3 billion won (US$25.7 million). Though it amounted to approximately 80 billion won (US$75 million) right after closing, after-hours trading reduced the size.
In the meantime, the Korea Securities Dealers’ Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) index lost 5.24 points, or 0.97%, to be 532.44 on the same day. Foreign investors net-sold 28.6 billion won (US$27.0 million) worth of shares, whereas individual and institutional investors net-bought 19 billion won (US$17.9 million) and 6.8 billion won (US$6.4 million) in shares, respectively.
In the foreign exchange market, the Korean won gained 0.5 won from the preceding day to close at 1,060.7 won per US dollar.