Korea closed higher, led by battery materials
The KOSPI rose 1.76% to 5768.01 on October 19 and the KOSDAQ rose 1.78% to 808.89. Among the 200 domestic names covered, 164 closed higher, 34 closed lower and 2 finished flat. The Korean market temperature reading was 68.
The three largest domestic gainers all sit in batteries or battery materials. Ticker 020150 rose 18.42% to 58,500 KRW, EcoPro Materials rose 14.75% to 36,950 KRW and Samsung SDI rose 11.70% to 592,000 KRW. When a single industry fills the top three places, money moved along one line rather than spreading evenly across the market.
- Lotte Energy Materials+18.42%
- EcoPro Materials+14.75%
- Samsung SDI+11.70%
- TSE-5.88%
- Hanmi Science-4.51%
- FADU-4.20%
The decliners sat on the semiconductor side
TSE fell 5.88% to 280,000 KRW, ticker 008930 fell 4.51% to 45,550 KRW and FADU fell 4.20% to 54,800 KRW. TSE and FADU both work on the semiconductor side, in testing equipment and in chip design, while ticker 008930 is a pharmaceutical holding company.
A Hankyoreh story the same day said doubts about profitability in big tech AI spending had landed directly on Korea as a chipmaking country, with third quarter earnings due. The industries at the bottom of the domestic list line up with that story.
The most recent US close fell while more names rose
The latest US figures are the October 16 close. The Nasdaq fell 2.15% to 26140.03, the S&P 500 fell 1.09% to 7659.44 and the Dow fell 0.34% to 52002.41.
In the same count, 114 foreign names closed higher against 84 lower. The indices moved down while more individual names moved up. The largest decliners were Palo Alto Networks, down 7.63% to 342.00 USD, Palantir Technologies, down 7.22% to 186.03 USD, and Advanced Micro Devices, down 5.95% to 528.75 USD, all large technology names. The largest gainers came from energy and defense: Diamondback Energy, up 4.27% to 203.95 USD, EOG Resources, up 4.23% to 158.01 USD, and Northrop Grumman, up 4.05% to 519.86 USD. The foreign market temperature reading was 55.
The won firmed, and crude fell on a different date
The won gained 10.35 against the dollar to 1,330.6 KRW per USD, a 0.77% move. Gold rose 0.39% to 4197.5, silver rose 1.11% to 57.62 and copper rose 0.70% to 6.58, close to its 52 week high of 6.83. WTI crude fell 4.50% to 96.85 and natural gas fell 0.13% to 3.11.
The gains in US energy names come from the October 16 close, while the drop in crude is an October 19 value. The two do not belong to the same scene and are better kept apart.
Crypto gained on the day and lost over the week
All six coins rose on the day: Solana 2.02%, XRP 1.31%, Bitcoin 0.96%, Ethereum 0.63%, BNB 0.44% and Cardano 0.24%. Bitcoin stood at 109,898,117 KRW and Ethereum at 3,230,438 KRW.
Over seven days all six are negative. Cardano is down 12.88%, XRP 7.10%, Solana 6.19%, Ethereum 5.47%, BNB 3.75% and Bitcoin 1.77%. Gold rose on the same day as well, so this was not a clean split between risk assets and safe ones.