Stock Price Plunged below 650 Points

The Korea Stock Composite Index (KOSPI) fell down below 650 points by the massive selling by the foreign investors. The index of KOSDAQ also declined to 71 points in past two days.

KOSPI on 17th was 648.28 points, which was 16.92 points lower than that of last weekend, and the index of KOSDAQ was 71.51 points, losing 2.43 points. In the stock market on 17th, foreigners led the index down by selling stocks on grand scale, influenced by the instability of the U.S. stock market and the aggravated Yen value.

In Seoul Bourse, foreigners sold out influential large-capital stocks for 113.5 billion won today. They are continuously selling for more than 100 billion won. Therefore, almost all large-capital stocks, which have high percentage of foreigners` shareholding, turned bearish. The stock prices were down by: Samsung Electronics (-1.76 percent), SK Telecom (-4.83 percent), KEPCO (-4.79 percent), Kookmin Bank (-1.58 percent), and POSCO (-0.88 percent).

In KOSDAQ, institutional investors led the downfall by selling the stocks for 16.7 billion won. As almost all segmental indexes looked pessimistic, the value of the top volume stocks listed in Kosdaq such as KTF, Kookmin Card, Kangwon Land, Industrial Bank of Korea, and LG Telecom all suffered loss.

Wan-Bae Lee roryrery@donga.com