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MARKET BRIEFING · KOREA

Leadership was sold first. As semiconductors, defense and power infrastructure fell together, money moved into cosmetics and entertainment.

October 7, 2026 · Read the Korean original

Major indices

  • KOSPI 6,803.90 -1.98%
  • KOSDAQ 898.43 -2.34%

What stands out more than the size of the decline is that the industries which had been leading this market were sold first. The KOSPI closed 1.98% lower at 6,803.90 and the KOSDAQ 2.34% lower at 898.43, and across the KRX 1,020 stocks rose while 1,501 fell. Decliners outnumbered advancers in both markets, with 369 up and 496 down on the KOSPI and 651 up and 1,005 down on the KOSDAQ, yet the 7 stocks making 252-session highs stood close to the 6 at new lows, so some names were also finding a floor.

The ground gave way under what had recently been this market's leadership. Defense, power infrastructure, semiconductors, steel and shipbuilding all fell together, and not a single stock advanced in nuclear power or shipbuilding, so the breadth of decline above is the result of heavy industry and semiconductors meeting profit-taking at the same time. Cosmetics and entertainment took their place as the only clearly higher industries. Even within semiconductors, KCTECH, which builds planarization process equipment, rose alone, while JUSUNG ENGINEERING and PSK, both sharply higher the previous day, fell by double digits. LG ELECTRONICS dropping more than 10% after reporting results captured the mood in electronic components, while SAMPYO Cement, carried by expectations of a larger infrastructure budget, surged with no disclosure behind it. Industry moves and individual stocks are laid out below under industry movers.

On the macro side the currency and rates pointed in opposite directions. The won strengthened to 1,343.4 per dollar, while the three-year government bond yield rose 2.8 basis points to 3.961% and the ten-year 0.7 basis points to 4.376%, and the US ten-year, as of October 5, stood 3.0 basis points higher at 5.31%. Gold slipped 0.25% to 4,142.9 dollars an ounce, so there was no great rush into safe assets either. In settlement flows for October 6, overseas stock trading left a net outflow of 146.9 million dollars; investor deposits and credit financing balances were missing, so no judgment was made on them.

The most common explanation for the backdrop is caution ahead of Samsung Electronics' preliminary third-quarter results, due the following day. Newsprime and ChosunBiz reported that the rebound in US Treasury yields and higher crude prices weighed on sentiment, and News1 noted that worries about a stronger won shrinking the translated value of exporters' overseas revenue were tangled up in it. By MBC's count, foreign investors sold 2.6 trillion won and institutions 600 billion won on the main board while individuals absorbed 2.5 trillion won. Yet the leading industry on relative strength is still semiconductors, with 9 stocks in bullish alignment and the OSAT and packaging node in leading status at 94.02. That the industry which fell most on the day still ranks first on trend score is the character of this session, and the money that actually moved went into the SOL Cosmetics TOP3 Plus ETF, up 4.08%.

The indices, advance and decline counts, industry and individual stock moves and the macro readings are confirmed figures from exchange disclosures and from data this site collects directly. By contrast, the reading that caution over Samsung Electronics' results or the move in rates and the currency caused the selling, and the reasons given for the gains in SAMPYO Cement and KCTECH, are estimates from the press and the brokerage community, so they may be better read as how it appeared. Disclosure timing differs across indicators: the US ten-year is as of October 5 and the overseas settlement figures as of October 6, while crude prices run only through September 29, so the oil rebound cited in today's coverage could not be confirmed in our own numbers. The exchange rate also rests on a different basis from the 3:30 p.m. fixing of 1,340.4 won in press reports, so the size of the move itself was left unstated.

Watchlist stocks by industry

Cosmetics & beauty +3.61% · 11 of 12 up

Entertainment & content +0.98% · 13 of 19 up

Construction & infrastructure +0.78% · 8 of 16 up

Semiconductors -3.74% · 3 of 42 up

Power infrastructure -4.52% · 1 of 11 up

Defense -4.90% · 1 of 13 up

Sources (Korean-language)

This market briefing was compiled by AI from this site's own price and filing data together with public news reports, and translated from the Korean original. Please check the sources below before relying on it.

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