By 9:45 a.m. the KOSPI was 0.20 percent lower at 6,284.46 after opening higher.
Samsung Electronics rose 2.82 percent to 237,000 won ($166), double the 1.40 percent gain that lifted SK hynix to 1,516,000 won ($1,064), even though SK hynix fell far harder on Thursday. Foreign investors turned buyers at the open, and the individual investors who absorbed their selling a day earlier turned sellers.
SK hynix dropped 10.37 percent Thursday against Samsung's 6.30 percent, so it is climbing out of a deeper hole with less lift. The No. 2 stock is 2.3 percent lower Friday at 1,460,000 won.
The reason is that Thursday's trigger was a NAND flash story, and NAND is where the two companies differ most.
SanDisk guided first-quarter revenue below consensus after Wednesday's U.S. close, and SK hynix owns Solidigm, the American NAND unit it is currently trying to raise as much as 10 trillion won ($7.0 billion) for in a pre-IPO round ahead of a possible Nasdaq listing.
Traders read doubts about NAND pricing as landing on SK hynix's balance sheet in a way they do not on Samsung's.
Foreign investors bought a net 297.1 billion won ($209 million) of main board stock in the opening minutes, after selling 3.35 trillion won ($2.35 billion) on Thursday.
Individuals sold a net 269.0 billion won ($189 million). Institutions were flat.
The narrowness of the move is easy to miss. More KOSPI stocks rose than fell on Thursday even as the index shed 4.58 percent, and 591 stocks were advancing against 233 declining at Friday's open.
The leadership again sat outside memory. LG Energy Solution gained 3.91 percent to 358,500 won ($252) and Samsung Electro-Mechanics rose 3.25 percent to 1,269,000 won ($891), with battery, chemical and lithium-linked names among the strongest sectors on the board.
The KOSDAQ climbed 1.64 percent to 814.80, outpacing the main index in Seoul and on course for a sixth consecutive advance.
Hyundai Motor Securities had flagged the pattern before the open, noting that money has rotated into small and mid-cap names since July and that retail holders were likely to sell into any index rebound.
Thursday's session had opened 1.81 percent lower and fell as far as 6,238.32, prompting the Korea Exchange to suspend program sell orders for five minutes at 10:18 a.m. under its sidecar rule.
The Nikkei 225 was down 254.07 points, or 0.39 percent, at 65,429.19 as Friday morning, after Japanese memory maker Kioxia slid more than 10 percent on Thursday.
The won traded at 1,424.60 per dollar, marginally weaker than Thursday.
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