PremiumThe Only Buyer Has Left The Building: Kospi Loses Its $40 Billion Buyback Crutch Weeks Ahead Of Schedule
A month ago we warned that the only thing standing between the Kospi and a crash was a corporate bid. Now that bid is going away.
Back on Sept 3, in "As Korean Retail Investors Flee, Only Record Buybacks Are Preventing A Kospi Market Crash", we showed that with Korea's legendary momo daytraders running for the exits after the historic meltdown the Korean stock market had experienced in the months prior, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were buying back their own stock at a record pace and were single-handedly absorbing the selling. We also said those buybacks were about to end. They did - and far sooner than anyone expected, as the chart below shows: after a six-week plateau of record purchases every single day, Kospi daily buybacks have collapsed to W0.71 trillion, less than half the peak, and on pace to go back to zero.