[Good Morning Stock Market] "KOSPI Attempts to Break 3,200 Amid Tariff Pressure and U.S. Earnings Season"

"External Factors to Have Major Impact This Week...
Follow-up Measures for Domestic Commercial Act Revisions Also in Focus"

This week, the KOSPI is expected to attempt to break through the 3,200 mark, closely monitoring external factors such as global tariff pressures and major U.S. corporate earnings announcements.

On July 11 (local time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which focuses on blue-chip stocks, closed at 44,371.51, down 279.13 points (0.63%) from the previous session on the New York Stock Exchange. The S&P 500, which tracks large-cap stocks, fell 20.71 points (0.33%) to 6,259.75, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 45.14 points (0.22%) to 20,585.53.

Reuters Yonhap News

Over the weekend, tariff pressure from the United States intensified. U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media that starting in August, a 35% tariff will be imposed on Canadian goods imported into the United States. He also sent letters notifying the European Union (EU) and Mexico of a 30% tariff. He warned that most trading partners would face a comprehensive tariff of 15-20%.

By stock, Nvidia, which leads the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, ended trading up 0.50% at $164.92, marking a four-day winning streak. The recent rise in its share price is attributed to expectations of re-entering the Chinese market. Amazon, Alphabet, and Tesla also posted gains of around 1%. In contrast, Apple, Meta, and Broadcom each fell by about 1%.

Regarding the Korean stock market, Kim Ji-won, a researcher at KB Securities, said, "This week is important for gauging the impact of tariffs being passed on to prices, as major U.S. economic indicators such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), retail sales, and industrial production are scheduled to be released." She added, "As the U.S. earnings season gets underway in earnest, the market will focus on external issues this week."

Lee Sunghoon, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, forecast the weekly KOSPI range to be between 3,080 and 3,220 points. He said, "Although the stock market will face tariff uncertainty from the beginning of the week, the impact will likely be limited to short-term volatility and will not be strong enough to disrupt the index's trend." He continued, "This week, the U.S. will also enter the full-fledged second-quarter earnings season with major companies such as Goldman Sachs, ASML, and Netflix announcing their results. The key will be to see how much tariffs affect each business segment and how conservatively companies present their own earnings forecasts going forward."

He added, "In the case of the domestic stock market, in addition to the passage of amendments to the Commercial Act such as the mandatory retirement of treasury shares and the separate taxation of dividend income, the market's attention will be focused on whether a follow-up roadmap for governance improvement is concretized."