[Good Morning Stock Market] Dollar Weakness... KOSPI Expected to Start Higher

On the 21st, the KOSPI is expected to start higher due to the decline in the won-dollar exchange rate caused by the weakening of the dollar.

On the previous day at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 44,176.65, down 450.94 points (1.01%) from the previous session. The S&P 500 index fell 26.63 points (0.43%) to 6,117.52, and the Nasdaq Composite index dropped 93.89 points (0.47%) to 19,962.36.

The New York stock market declined due to weak major economic indicators and a sharp drop following Walmart's disappointing guidance announcement, raising concerns about a slowdown in the U.S. economy centered on consumer spending.

The U.S. Leading Economic Index (LEI) for January fell 0.3% month-over-month, missing market expectations of -0.1%. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank manufacturing index for February also recorded 18.1, below both the market expectation of 19.4 and the previous month's 44.3.

Additionally, Austin Goolsbee, President of the Chicago Fed, and Raphael Bostic, President of the Atlanta Fed, mentioned the economic uncertainties caused by President Donald Trump's immigration and tariff policies, which further fueled market concerns and led to a decline in risk asset preference sentiment.

Last week's U.S. retail sales data also recorded figures significantly below market expectations, even considering temporary factors such as the LA wildfires. The U.S. CITI Economic Surprise Index recently turned negative (-0.20), indicating early signs of a slowdown in the U.S. economic growth outlook, which had been supported by consumer spending.

Although it is not yet at a level to raise fears of a recession, there is an analysis that if the economic indicators continue to show a weakening trend amid ongoing uncertainty over Trump's policies, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy stance could also become somewhat more accommodative.

On the previous day, the domestic stock market closed lower as profit-taking selling emerged mainly in the semiconductor and shipbuilding sectors, despite gains in some media and cosmetics sectors due to expectations of the lifting of China's ban on Korean content, and accumulated fatigue from seven consecutive days of gains.

Seonghoon Lee, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, forecasted, "Today, the domestic stock market is expected to start higher, recovering the previous day's losses, due to factors such as the relatively resilient performance of Apple and Nvidia despite the decline in the U.S. stock market and the decline in the won-dollar exchange rate caused by the weakening dollar."

He analyzed, "In particular, Alibaba's stock surged 8.1% due to factors such as increased sales in the cloud sector driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI). It is worth paying attention to whether this will have a favorable effect on the domestic software sector's sentiment amid the strengthening AI narrative."