Key points
- Korea reopens Monday after a holiday
- Who bought while foreigners sold
- Foreign selling hit SK Hynix hardest
On October 12, Korea's stock market reopens after the Hangeul Day holiday with its two biggest companies almost done buying back their own shares. Samsung Electronics (005930) has finished its buyback, and SK Hynix (000660) is expected to finish its own around October 15 to 17, according to Financial News (파이낸셜뉴스).
The Kospi more than doubled in the first half of the year, then fell 22% from the end of June to its October 8 close. On that last trading day before the holiday, Samsung fell 2.42% even after estimating third-quarter operating profit almost nine times higher than a year earlier.
Other corporations absorbed most of September's net selling
In September, foreign investors sold a net 21.5 trillion won ($16.0B) of Kospi stocks, and individual investors sold a net 14.2 trillion won ($10.6B), based on Korea Exchange data. The group the exchange calls "other corporations," which includes company buybacks, bought a net 31.4 trillion won ($23.4B). That was about 88% of what foreign and individual investors sold.
Samsung's 15 trillion won ($11.2B) buyback was for employee stock awards, and the company hasn't bought shares since October 7. By October 1, SK Hynix had bought 18.35 million of the 24.07 million shares in its plan, worth about 32 trillion won ($23.8B). At 600,000 to 650,000 shares a day, the rest would take until mid-October, more than a month before its November 19 deadline.
"The buyers that have been holding up the bottom of the index are going away, so there's a real worry that its footing gets weaker," Jung Hee-chan (정희찬), an analyst at Samsung Futures (삼성선물), wrote in an October 1 report.
SK Hynix's foreign ownership fell below half
From September 1 to October 2, foreign investors sold a net 12.0 trillion won ($8.9B) of SK Hynix, 2.3 times what they sold of Samsung, Korea Economic TV (한국경제TV) reported. Foreign ownership of SK Hynix fell to 49.76%, below half for the first time since May 2023. Foreigners owned 46.41% of Samsung.
Han Ji-young (한지영), an analyst at Kiwoom Securities (키움증권), thinks the selling could turn around. "If worries about the economy peak this month and profits become easier to see after third-quarter earnings season, that will give foreigners a reason to buy," she said.
Some global funds are looking at Taiwan
Turnover in Korean stocks has fallen 70% from its peak in late May, and some global funds now prefer Taiwan for AI exposure, Bloomberg reported. UBS Global Wealth Management said Taiwan offers "a more complete technology hardware ecosystem." Taiwan's Taiex is up 70% this year. By our arithmetic, the Kospi fell 19.3% in the third quarter while the Taiex rose 3.9%.
Samsung releases its full third-quarter results on October 29.
The analyst comments are translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,344.5 won to the dollar, the Naver Finance rate on October 8, 2026.
