Today’s Calls
Monday pre-open: overnight futures quiet, focus on KOSDAQ after Friday’s drop
It is Monday, 24 August 2026, before the open in Seoul.Overnight futures barely moved: S&P 500 futures +0.23%, Nasdaq 100 futures 0.00% and Nikkei (CME) futures -0.2%, measured on the 05:00 KST bar of 22 August against the 15:00 KST bar of 21 August.In Friday’s US cash session the Dow rose +0.98%, the Nasdaq +0.43% and the S&P 500 +0.43%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor IndexAn index of roughly thirty semiconductor companies compiled on the Philadelphia exchange in the United States.It tends to move in the same direction as Korea’s large semiconductor names, so it is used as a reference for the next Korean session. semiconductor index alone fell -0.51%.Today is the first session after KOSDAQ fell -4.63% on Friday, a day when KOSPI rose +0.88% and the two indices split; the evening review recorded that the cause of that drop could not be confirmed in the news flow.
Today’s Calls
Where the day’s calls are placed by number — grading starts with the Early Session edition
Today’s forecast is placed as a range, not a direction
Two forecasts were placed before the open today, on KOSPI and on KOSDAQ.Neither states a direction. Each is placed as a range — -5.82~+5.82% for KOSPI and -4.51~+4.51% for KOSDAQ — a 70% band, meaning roughly seven days in ten should land inside it.Splitting the overnight signals apart, none of them stood up well enough to lean one way, so no direction was placed.
Friday’s scorecard came in at 9/17. KOSPI and SK hynix were right; KOSDAQ was called flat against an actual -4.63% and missed badly.Two things went wrong that day: reading KOSDAQ across from a rising KOSPI, and drawing the range too narrow.Today the two indices are placed separately and the ranges are not narrowed.
The world overnight — how the US session ended
A window on what happened in the US market overnight
The three main US indices rose while semiconductors alone fell
In Friday’s US cash session the Dow closed +0.98%, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 each at +0.43%.The SOX semiconductor index alone went the other way at -0.51%, so the semiconductor leg split from the broad index inside the US market itself.The US 10-year Treasury yield moved +0.89% to 4.738%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed -0.3% at 66,016.36, so neither rates nor the neighbouring market point one way.
Korea–U.S. mutual following — overnight grading
A window on which market followed which
Year to date Korea followed the US on 39 days, the US followed Korea on 30
The US readings available for comparison this morning are Friday’s closes: the Nasdaq +0.43%, the S&P 500 +0.43% and the Dow +0.98% all rose, while the SOX semiconductor index diverged at -0.51%.EWY, the US-listed Korea ETF, was nearly unchanged at +0.10%. It normally previews how foreign investors view Korea, but this morning it offers no direction.
On the year, Korea followed the US on 39 days, the US followed Korea on 30, both moved together on 46 and neither followed on 24, out of a sample of 139.That puts the no-follow case at roughly one day in six, which is why an overnight US move should not be read straight across into the Korean session.
Overnight SOX ↔ same-day KOSPI in the same direction (|SOX| ≥ 0.5%) = Korea following · same-day KOSPI ↔ that night’s SOX in the same direction (|KOSPI| ≥ 0.5%) = the U.S. following
Night window —EWYofficial indicator
A window on what overnight futures foreshadow for the next day’s open
All three overnight US and Nikkei futures held a narrow range
Overnight world futures stood at 7,691.25 for S&P 500 futures (+0.23%), 29,387.75 for Nasdaq 100 futures (0.00%) and 65,915.0 for Nikkei (CME, yen) futures (-0.2%), measured on the 05:00 KST bar of 22 August against the previous Korean close bar at 15:00 KST on 21 August.With all three inside a narrow range they give no advance reading on the direction of the open, and being an hourly approximation they can carry about an hour of timing error.
Pre-open08:00~09:00 — single-price auction (open/close)The single-price auction window (before the open and just before the close), where orders are pooled and matched at once.When large volume crowds into this window, a gap is created.forecast
A window on where the pre-open auction is pulling the opening price
The Call auctionA method that collects orders over a set period and settles them all at a single price.Orders gathered between 08:30 and 09:00 set the first price of the day, so the opening GapThe difference between the previous close and the first traded price of the day.It shows in one move how much of the overnight overseas material has been priced in at the open. is decided there. has not started; watch KOSDAQ’s response rather than the gap
At 07:30, when this edition goes out, the pre-open call auction running from 08:30 to 09:00 has not begun, so today’s prices are not in this page.On overnight material alone there are two things to watch: how the semiconductor split seen in the US carries into Korean large caps, and whether KOSDAQ, down -4.63% on Friday, retraces in the first hour or extends.
Previous-Day Review
A window that retraces what happened in the previous session
Friday: right on KOSPI, badly wrong on KOSDAQ
The Silmari Fear Gauge
A window measuring market anxiety through volatility, margin lending and Short sellingBorrowing shares to sell them first and buying them back later at a lower price to keep the difference.A sudden rise in the balance indicates that capital has gathered behind a fall in that name.
Sentiment reads neutral, with only the volatility component near the top
The composite sentiment score is 0.894, placing the stage at neutral.Broken into components, only one stands out: 20-day realised volatility sits in the 93th percentile and the Leveraged exchange-traded fundA fund designed to track twice the daily move of an underlying index.When its share of trading rises, a small index decline can force selling from doubly exposed holders and deepen the fall.-ETF share in the 94th, while the rest do not.Margin lending (4.85) and Forced liquidationA broker selling a client’s shares without instruction when stock bought with borrowed money falls below a threshold.The selling happens regardless of the holder’s intent, which deepens declines in a falling market. (1.0) are dated 20 August: the Korea Financial Investment Association publishes them a day late, so this morning shows Thursday’s readings.
The sentiment gauge has read neutral on 47 days so far this year.On the following session KOSPI averaged -0.38% with a median of +0.65% and rose on 63.8% of those days, spanning -1.00% at the lower quartile to +2.11% at the upper: a range too wide to narrow the direction.Days with a composite score in today’s 60-80% band number only 28, and their next-day average was -1.05%: too small a sample to lean on for direction.
Today is not a day on which the gauge tripped a specific trigger. The component counted only on down days, the retail buying share, is marked not applicable because Friday was an up day.The domestic sentiment gauge is measured after the Korean close, so it is used here to explain today rather than to bet on tomorrow; this year’s measurements found no next-day predictive power in it.
The won — the signal is the speed of the move, not its direction
A window on the pressure the won-dollar rate puts on foreign flows
The won rate is not in this morning’s data set, so only the dollar index is shown
The won-dollar and yen-won rates were not collected this morning for want of sample. That does not mean the values do not exist, only that they have not reached us yet; they will be carried once a later edition fills them in.What can be shown is the dollar index, at 98.861 as of 23 August, a move of +0.06%, which is too small to call a direction.
The SilmariDecouplingWhen two markets that used to move together break apart and move separately.The wider the gap, the less any single index can tell you about the market.Gauge
A window on the pattern in the KOSPI–KOSDAQ decoupling
KOSDAQ enters its first session after Friday’s drop
Warning
A window flagging in advance where today’s session calls for caution
Crash-precursor score of 3, but both contributing readings are stale
The crash-precursor score stands at 3, which carries the crash-watch grade. Two items lifted it: the US-listed SK hynix depositary receipt at 2 points and a short-selling surge at 1 point.Both should be read together with their dates. The depositary receipt reading of -16.7% is from the US session of 28 July, and the short-selling balance is dated 18 August, which the exchange discloses two days later.Selling acceleration and the sentiment-above-90 item both score 0 today. The watch grade rests on those two stale readings, not on the flow through Friday.