About an hour after trading began, the index stood at 8,220.63, down 0.1 percent, after briefly slipping toward 8,080 before recovering from a weaker start. The junior KOSDAQ fell more sharply, down 1.77 percent at 1,113.06. Foreign investors sold a net 1.62 trillion won of KOSPI shares, against net buying of 1.23 trillion won by individuals and 357 billion won by institutions — a pattern that has marked the rally's recent sessions, with overseas money repeatedly taking profit even as the index has reached fresh highs.
The narrowness that had concerned analysts deepened. Advancing issues numbered 200 against 669 declines on the main board, an even thinner breadth than the previous session — when fewer than a hundred names had risen alongside a record close. With Samsung Electronics easing to 311,500 won and SK Hynix gaining only modestly, the heavyweights that powered Wednesday's rally were no longer leading; instead, money flowed into the next ring of AI beneficiaries.
Batteries and battery materials were the standout. LG Energy Solution surged nearly 11 percent to 424,000 won, with the secondary-battery production theme up 5.61 percent overall. Samsung SDI rose 6.35 percent.
The move came alongside renewed strength in display and component shares, with LG Display advancing 5.73 percent and the multilayer ceramic capacitor segment up 5.18 percent — sectors that had paused on Wednesday as flows concentrated into newly listed leveraged exchange-traded funds tracking Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix individually. Those same single-stock ETFs reversed lower on Thursday, a sign that the speculative concentration in the two chipmakers had begun to unwind.
Hyundai Motor rose to 693,000 won, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics climbed to 1,673,000 won, reinforcing the rotation toward names with operating exposure to AI infrastructure rather than direct memory leverage.
The currency market told a similar story. The won slightly weakened to 1,504 against the dollar from the previous session's close, a sign that foreign investors remain cautious even as domestic investors continue to push stocks higher during the market's record-setting run.
Asian markets that had rallied alongside Seoul earlier in the week also paused. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.68 percent to 64,515.29, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng H-shares declined 1.33 percent and China's Shanghai Composite slipped 1.25 percent.
The retreat came despite a firm overnight session in New York, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite both closed at fresh highs — a divergence indicating that the Asia chip trade, not global risk sentiment, was where the fatigue lay.
For now, the question is whether the rotation into the broader AI value chain marks a healthy broadening of a rally that had grown dangerously concentrated, or the first stage of a profit-taking phase in which foreign sellers set the direction even as the index level holds. The breadth, the flows and the won each suggest the second reading remains the more honest one.
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