Key points
- Kospi closed down 0.60% at 6,258.77 on Friday, August 7, a seventh straight losing week, the longest such streak since December 2022.
- Kosdaq fell 0.36% to 798.81 the same day, ending a five-session run that had added about 24%.
- SK Hynix declared a 375 won ($0.26 USD) quarterly dividend and, for the first time, put a real window on its bigger payout plan, sometime within the third quarter, months earlier than the "by year end" date it gave Reuters two days before.
- The market wasn't satisfied. SK Hynix still fell 4.88% Friday, and Mirae Asset Securities' Suh Sang-young said disappointment over the shareholder-return plan was part of why, on top of the same day's Nvidia memory story.
- Foreign investors sold 862.5 billion won ($609M USD) more Kospi stock than they bought on Friday. A US inflation report Wednesday and lingering Strait of Hormuz tension are two things that could move the market before next Friday.
On August 7, Kospi closed down 0.60% at 6,258.77, which is a seventh straight losing week. That's the longest such streak since December 2022. It comes just a week after the index posted its biggest single-day gain ever. Kosdaq broke a different streak the same day. It had climbed for five straight sessions, adding about 24%, before slipping 0.36% to 798.81.
The week itself fell about 5% from the Friday before. SK Hynix pulled the index down again on Friday, still reacting to Wednesday's report that Nvidia may need less memory in its next AI chip than first planned. Samsung Electronics closed the week higher, up 0.22% at 231,000 won ($163 USD). It sells far less of that memory than SK Hynix does, so Friday's report barely touched it.
Friday's selling came almost entirely from one place. Foreign investors pulled 862.5 billion won ($609M USD) more out of Kospi than they put in. Institutions stepped in and kept the index from falling further, but their buying skipped chip stocks. It went into secondary battery makers, banks, and pharmaceutical stocks instead, the same three sectors that have done best on the days chips fell this week.
SK Hynix's payout promise just got a deadline
Two days before Friday's close, on Wednesday, August 5, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics each sent Reuters a statement saying more money is coming for shareholders. Neither one gave a number or a date. SK Hynix's statement went a little further, promising a concrete plan by the end of the year, but nothing more specific than that.
On Friday, SK Hynix filed something more specific. It declared its regular quarterly dividend, 375 won ($0.26 USD) a share, with a record date of August 31 and payment due within a month after that. The total works out to about 273.3 billion won ($193M USD). The same filing set a date for the bigger plan too. That one's coming within the third quarter, sometime before September 30, months sooner than the year-end language Reuters got two days earlier.
This dividend is part of a 2025-2027 shareholder-return policy. It already raised SK Hynix's fixed annual dividend to 1,500 won ($1.06 USD) a share, 25% more than before. The company still hasn't said what shape the bigger plan takes. A dividend increase, a buyback, or some mix of both are all still on the table. A June report claimed a payout package near 100 trillion won ($70B USD). SK Hynix denied that report too. Friday's filing still doesn't say which way it's leaning, only that a decision is coming by September 30.
The market didn't treat any of that as good news either. SK Hynix fell 4.88% Friday. Suh Sang-young, a managing director at Mirae Asset Securities (미래에셋증권), said the shareholder-return announcement was part of the reason, not just the Nvidia memory story already weighing on the stock. "Uncertainty and disappointment around shareholder-return policy are a big deal," Suh said. He pointed to what some overseas investors are already asking for, a commitment to return 80% of SK Hynix's free cash flow to shareholders. A quarterly dividend and a promised date weren't that.
Brokerages are still far apart on where Kospi goes from here. Kim Min-gyu at KB Securities (KB증권) put the August range at 5,500 to 8,000. "Interest rates won't come down easily in the near term, so it will take time for the market to reach new highs," Kim said. Han Ji-young at Kiwoom Securities (키움증권) took the more optimistic side. "Reading the recent weakness as the end of the recovery goes too far," Han said, pointing to rising profit forecasts and cheap valuations as reasons a medium-term rebound is still likely.
The Bank of Korea isn't part of next week's calendar the way some might expect. Its committee has a routine session on August 13, but that one doesn't set the base rate. The next actual rate decision isn't until August 27.
A US inflation report for July lands Wednesday, and it won't reach Seoul trading until Thursday morning, since it's due in the evening in Korea, after that day's session has already closed. The Strait of Hormuz tension that helped drag Kospi down twice this week hadn't eased by Friday's close either.
Sources
- 뉴스핌, [마감시황] 코스피, 7주 연속 하락…외국인 매도에 6258.77, on Friday's close and the seven-week losing streak
- 뉴시스, SK하이닉스, 주당 375원 분기배당 결정…3분기 중 추가 주주환원 발표, on SK Hynix's dividend and its third-quarter shareholder-return timeline
- 세계일보, "코스피, 7500∼8000 가능" 증권가 8월 전망은, on brokerage forecasts for the month
- 연합뉴스TV, 주주환원 실망에 SK하이닉스↓…코스피도 하락 전환, on the market's disappointed reaction to the dividend announcement
- Our earlier coverage: Samsung and SK Hynix's vague Reuters statements and Friday's Nvidia memory selloff
Won figures are converted at 1,416 won to the dollar, the August 7, 2026 rate. Quotes and figures are translated from Korean reporting. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.
