The KOSPI was up more than 5 percent on Thursday morning and closed down 1.23 percent, its third fall in a row

Five percent.

That is roughly where the KOSPI stood at its best moment on Thursday morning in Seoul, and it is not where the session ended. The index closed at 5,593.56, down 69.68 points or 1.23 percent, its third consecutive decline, reported by Cho Su-yeon at the Seoul Economic Daily. It had opened higher, at 5,681.77, up 18.53 points or 0.33 percent. The Asia Business Daily reports the morning gain passed 5 percent before the market turned, and that the decline held through the afternoon.

The KOSDAQ never had the morning. It opened at 654.72, down 7.96 points or 1.20 percent, and closed at 644.78, down 17.90 points or 2.70 percent.

The record that could not hold a gain

Samsung Electronics reported the largest quarterly results in its history before the open. The Asia Business Daily reports the shares traded more than 8 percent higher during the session and finished it down 0.72 percent.

Around that, the split this desk described on Wednesday morning held and widened. Pharmaceuticals rose 3.51 percent, chemicals 2.56 percent, metals 2.49 percent, transportation equipment and parts 2.19 percent and insurance 1.96 percent. Electrical and electronics fell 3.08 percent, medical precision instruments 2.10 percent, manufacturing 1.83 percent and entertainment and culture 1.46 percent.

The names inside those numbers are the ones that have been carrying the fall all week. Samsung Electro-Mechanics fell 14.58 percent. SK Square fell 6.00 percent, SK hynix 5.64 percent, SK 4.19 percent and Samsung Electronics preferred shares 1.56 percent. On the other side Hanwha Aerospace rose 6.79 percent, LG Energy Solution 6.49 percent, Celltrion 5.56 percent, KB Financial Group 4.56 percent, Hana Financial Group 3.49 percent, Samsung Biologics 3.25 percent and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries 3.23 percent.

The KOSDAQ list is narrower and steeper. Jusung Engineering fell 15.33 percent, PSK 11.75 percent, PharmaResearch 11.00 percent, Peptron 10.72 percent, Rainbow Robotics 9.14 percent, Wonik IPS 8.29 percent and Simmtech 7.00 percent. Ecopro rose 4.75 percent and Ecopro BM 4.21 percent on the same board.

Who bought and who sold

Foreign investors bought a net 1.3329 trillion won of KOSPI shares and institutions a net 66.6 billion won. Individual investors sold a net 1.4199 trillion won. On the KOSDAQ, foreign investors bought a net 247.6 billion won while institutions sold 143.7 billion won and individuals 110.5 billion won.

That is the second session in a row with foreign investors on the buying side and retail investors on the selling side. Set it against Tuesday, when foreign investors sold nearly 5 trillion won of KOSPI shares and individual investors bought a net 4.3 trillion won. The two sides have swapped places inside three days.

Jeongeun Lim, an analyst at KB Securities, told The Asia Business Daily that the market is now separating sharply by industry and by individual stock as earnings season runs, and that the remaining large technology results and the course of events in the Middle East will decide whether a short-term turn happens at all.

The document

There is none, for the reason this desk recorded on Wednesday and again on Thursday morning. The Korea Exchange publishes no English-language notice of an index level, and its statistics portal at data.krx.co.kr returns a login page. The figures above rest on two named Seoul outlets reporting the same close, one of them with a named reporter, and both publish in English translation from Korean originals. Where their accounts differ, they do not: both give 5,593.56, down 69.68 points, down 1.23 percent.