hankyoreh

Jeong Eun-bo, the CEO and chairman of the Korea Exchange, and others celebrate the record-breaking day for KOSPI on Sept. 10, 2025, at the exchange’s headquarters in Busan. (Yonhap)

 
The KOSPI rewrote history for the first time in four years, hitting a record high on Wednesday. The KOSDAQ hit a yearly high after rising by 0.99% to close at 833.0 points.
 
The Korea Exchange’s rates on Wednesday showed the KOSPI finishing at 3,314.53, up 54.48 points (1.67%) from the day before. The new high comes just over four years since the index broke the record on July 6, 2021, when it closed at 3,305.21.
 
The day after Wall Street’s three main indexes closed at record highs on Tuesday (local time), Seoul’s stock market saw the KOSPI begin trading at 3,272.20, up 12.15 points (0.37%), before gradually increasing in growth. It broke the 3,300-point barrier at 9:31 am, leaping up to 3,317.77 at 2:23 pm, breaking the previous intraday high of 3,316.08 recorded on June 25, 2021.
 
The rally was buoyed by foreign investors, who bought 1.311 trillion won in the securities market and the KOSPI 200 market. Institutional investors also bought 90.29 billion won worth of shares.
 
Individually, SK Hynix share prices surged 5.56% to 304,000 won, spearheading the rise in the KOSPI index.
 
The KOSPI, which ended 2024 at 2,399.49, rose to 3,254.47 on July 30, only to remain stagnant for approximately a month following the proposed changes to tax policies announced on Aug. 1, and the South Korean government’s trade deal with the US.
 
Since Sept. 2, the index has risen for seven straight trading days.
 
Market analysts attribute this surge to investors’ optimism that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week, which is predicted to increase liquidity, and the expectation that the Lee Jae Myung administration will relax capital gains tax rules for major shareholders.
 
The KOSPI has gained 38.1% in 2025, rising 22.8% since the inauguration of the Lee administration following the election on June 3.
 
Despite foreign investors’ eagerness to buy, the won-dollar exchange rate remained largely stationary, closing the trading day at 1,338.6 won to the dollar, 1.3 won lower than the day before. This can be attributed to the strength of the dollar following Israel’s strike on Doha, Qatar, the day before.

By Jeong Nam-ku, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]