US FOMC Caution... KOSPI and KOSDAQ Close Lower Together

On the 19th, the domestic stock market closed lower.

On that day, the KOSPI index closed at 2,559.21, down 15.51 points (0.60%) from the previous trading day. Individual investors net bought 361 billion KRW, while foreigners and institutions net sold 1.6 billion KRW and 385.4 billion KRW, respectively.

Among the top market capitalization groups in KOSPI, SK Hynix (0.17%) was the only stock to close slightly higher, while most others ended the session weaker. LG Chem closed at 552,000 KRW, down 3.66% from the previous day, and LG Energy Solution (-2.07%), POSCO Holdings (-1.66%), and Samsung SDI (-1.59%) also closed lower.

Seokhwan Kim, a researcher at Mirae Asset Securities, explained, "Ahead of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, with no clear direction, foreigners expanded their futures selling, causing large-cap KOSPI stocks to generally decline. Semiconductor stocks weakened, with Samsung Electronics falling below 70,000 KRW, and the domestic secondary battery value chain broadly followed the weakness seen in Tesla and the U.S. stock market."

The KOSDAQ index closed at 883.89, down 7.40 points (0.83%) from the previous trading day. Individual investors net bought 149.8 billion KRW, while foreigners and institutions net sold 86.5 billion KRW and 59.8 billion KRW, respectively.

Among the top market capitalization groups in KOSDAQ, Alteogen surged 9.51% to rise to 7th place in market capitalization. Meanwhile, Rainbow Robotics (-2.97%), POSCO DX (-2.87%), and HLB (-1.09%) closed lower.

Meanwhile, in the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won-dollar exchange rate closed at 1,328.5 KRW, up 4.1 KRW from the previous trading day.