Markets

Foreign Buyers Came Back to Seoul for the First Time in Nine Sessions. The Kospi Rose 2%

The Kospi rose 2.05% to 5,668 on October 16, ending an eight-session losing streak, as foreign investors turned net buyers for the first time in nine sessions. The Nikkei gained 1.39%, but both indexes gave up much of their intraday rally.

Oct 16, 2026

A day after the worst session for Asian technology stocks in months, the rebound came — but more cautiously than the morning suggested. South Korea's Kospi closed 2.05% higher at 5,668.05 on Friday, ending a run of eight straight losses. It had been up as much as 4.6% in the afternoon before fading. The tech-heavy Kosdaq did better, rising 4.46% to 794.78 after a 7.65% drop on Thursday.

The number that mattered most in Seoul was the flow. Foreign investors bought a net 343 billion won of Korean shares, according to SBS, their first net purchase in nine sessions. Set against the selling of the past weeks — about 2 trillion won a day on average this month, and a record 3.635 trillion won on Thursday alone — it is a small first step rather than a reversal.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rose 1.39% to 65,324.29, snapping a six-day losing streak, but it still finished the week about 5.4% lower. The broader Topix gained 1.67%. Chip-equipment maker Tokyo Electron added 2.56% and memory maker Kioxia 3.84%; SoftBank Group, which fell about 9% on Thursday, recovered 1.9%. Taiwan's main index managed only 0.30%.

Three things turned the mood. Wall Street had recovered late on Thursday, with the Dow up more than 1% and the 10-year Treasury yield down to 5.09%. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said CoreWeave's "strength is improving every day", easing fears about the AI cloud provider whose debt had rattled the sector. And Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, speaking in Bangkok, gave no hint of another rate increase.

Thursday's collapse had been driven by a hot US inflation report and doubts about how AI companies finance their spending; neither has gone away. A bounce that loses half its gains by the close, on foreign buying that is a fraction of the recent selling, is the kind of day that tells you the sellers have paused — not that they are done.