KOSPI Falls 2.6 Percent to 6,626 for a Third Straight Day Even After Samsung Forecasts Record Profit

SEOUL — South Korean stocks fell for a third session Thursday, with the KOSPI closing down 177.97 points, or 2.62 percent, at 6,625.93, as foreign and institutional selling outweighed a record profit forecast from Samsung Electronics.

The index opened 0.07 percent higher, at 6,808.68, and reversed. Decliners beat advancers 625 to 252. Foreign investors sold a net 1.99 trillion won, about $1.5 billion. Institutions sold about 1.67 trillion won. Retail investors bought a net 2.90 trillion won and did not stop the decline. The Kosdaq fell 3.01 percent to 892.27. The won was quoted at 1,338.5 to the dollar at 3:30 p.m., firmer than 1,340.4 at the previous close. Markets are shut Friday for a holiday, so Thursday's print stands until Monday.

Samsung's preliminary third-quarter figures were the number the session was supposed to trade. Operating profit was forecast at 107.4 trillion won, up 782.5 percent from a year earlier, a record, on demand for artificial-intelligence memory. Revenue was forecast at 195 trillion won, up 126.6 percent. The stock and its peers still fell. Chip shares led the selling, and the selling spread past them.

The overnight lead was lower, not higher. The Dow fell 0.66 percent and the Nasdaq 0.22 percent. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield was around 5.33 percent Thursday afternoon after briefly topping 5.36 percent, the highest since 2002. Oil prices added to the inflation worry. Yonhap said investors were wary because higher oil is feeding prices and the Federal Reserve has signaled it may need to raise rates this year. Wednesday's close of 6,803.90 was already the lowest since Sept. 17. Thursday took another 178 points off that.

A profit print that large, sold on the day it is published, is a market trading the discount rate rather than the earnings. Samsung's guidance says the memory cycle is still paying. A 10-year yield at a 24-year high says the multiple on that profit is what foreigners are cutting. Retail buying of 2.9 trillion won is the other side of the same trade: local accounts taking what overseas accounts are leaving, at a price 2.6 percent lower than Wednesday.

This is the third straight loss. The two before it were already about yields and missing liquidity, not about a missed quarter. Huh Jae-hwan of Eugene Investment Securities had said Wednesday that the market was weak on foreign selling and anxiety over high bond yields despite a record night in the United States. Thursday did not have the record night. It had the yields, the oil, and a Samsung number that would have been the day's headline in a different rate regime.

The 6,625.93 close is the mark that has to be lived with over a three-day weekend. Samsung's 107.4 trillion won is a forecast, not a filing. The foreign sale of 1.99 trillion won is a filing of a different kind. One says the chips are selling. The other says the shares, today, were not.