As of 11:20 a.m. on July 2, the KOSPI was trading at 8,072.97, down 230.44 points (2.78%) from the previous trading day. The index opened at 7,933.10, down 370.31 points (4.46%), and fell to as low as 7,723.57, breaching the 7,800 mark before recovering to above 8,000.
In the early session, KOSPI 200 futures dropped more than 5% for over a minute, prompting a sell-off sidecar to be activated at 9:07 a.m.
Retail investors net purchased 2.2945 trillion won worth of stocks, while foreign and institutional investors sold a net 3.8915 trillion won and 1.4994 trillion won, respectively.
Most of the top market capitalization stocks continued to decline, including Samsung Electronics (-4.45%), SK Hynix (-5.35%), SK Square (-7.11%), Samsung Electro-Mechanics (-7.48%), Samsung Life Insurance (-3.23%), Samsung C&T (-3.69%), and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (-1.14%). However, Hyundai Motor (1.33%), LG Energy Solution (2.16%), and Samsung Biologics (2.01%) saw gains.
Notably, Samsung Electronics fell to 288,000 won early in the session but has since recovered to the 300,000 won level, while SK Hynix dropped to 2.31 million won before climbing back to the 2.4 million won range, indicating a slight reduction in the losses of major semiconductor stocks.
At the same time, the KOSDAQ index recorded a decline of 35.56 points (3.83%), trading at 893.79. The index opened at 904.53, down 24.82 points (2.67%), and fell to 879.07, dropping below the 880 mark before partially recovering.
Retail investors net purchased 322.9 billion won worth of stocks, while foreign and institutional investors sold a net 275.9 billion won and 57.4 billion won, respectively.
Most of the top KOSDAQ stocks also faced declines, including Wonik IPS (-15.22%), PSK (-7.09%), Rino Industry (-6.73%), EcoPro BM (-5.05%), Rainbow Robotics (-4.43%), HLB (-4.08%), EcoPro (-3.55%), and Kolon TissueGene (-2.37%). Alteogen remained stable, while JUSUNG Engineering (0.21%) showed slight gains.
Market analysts view the recent drop as a short-term shock triggered by news of Meta's entry into the cloud business, raising concerns about a slowdown in AI investment cycles. Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, stated, "The stock prices of memory companies surged during the second quarter, leading to accumulated profit-taking desires, and the news of Meta's cloud business entry served as a justification for selling. The investment sentiment has been excessively dampened, more so than the semiconductor industry's actual conditions."
He added, "There are still upcoming events that could restore investor sentiment, such as Samsung Electronics' preliminary results, SK Hynix's earnings, and the performance announcements of major U.S. tech companies. Currently, the narrative around AI investment has been tarnished, but corporate profits themselves have not been damaged. Therefore, it is important to focus on future earnings rather than overreacting to minute-by-minute volatility."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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