Today’s Calls
Overnight the US pointed up — the mirror image of yesterday’s open
It is Wednesday, 26 August 2026, before the open in Seoul.Overnight the Philadelphia Semiconductor IndexAn index of roughly thirty semiconductor companies compiled on the Philadelphia exchange.It tends to move with Korea’s large semiconductor names, so it is used as a reference for the next Korean session. semiconductor index rose +1.44%, with the Nasdaq +0.66%, the S&P 500 +0.32% and the Dow +0.3% all higher.iShares MSCI South Korea ETFAn exchange-traded fund listed in the United States that holds Korean equities.It trades while the Korean market is closed, giving an early read on how foreign investors price Korea., the US-listed Korea ETF that previews the foreign view, rose +3.75% — the largest of them.Yesterday the outside signal pointed down and Korea rose. Today the market opens with that arrangement reversed.
Today’s Calls
Where the day’s calls are placed by number — grading starts with the Early Session edition
Today the call is a range, not narrowed to a single probability
Two forecasts are carried on this page today: KOSPI and KOSDAQ.Neither leans either way, so instead of narrowing to a single probability each is placed as a range. The bands in the table below are those ranges — 70% bands, meaning roughly seven days in ten should land inside them.The reason is that the overnight signals pointed opposite ways: one strand pointed up and another down, and neither stood out enough to gather into one number.
The most recent edition to place a forecast was Monday’s. The two carried on this page, KOSPI and KOSDAQ, both landed inside their bands that day.Yesterday no forecast was placed. The morning analysis was not generated, that edition did not go out, and so nothing was scored for yesterday.The 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 left as a gap — calling Monday’s result “yesterday’s scorecard” would erase the skipped day from the page.
The world overnight — how the US session ended
A window on what happened in the US market overnight
The three main US indices and semiconductors rose together
In the US cash session overnight the Nasdaq closed +0.66%, the S&P 500 +0.32% and the Dow +0.3%.The SOX semiconductor index rose more than the indices at +1.44%, recovering from the -2.7% it fell the session before.The US 10-year Treasury yield eased -1.38% to 4.639%, gold rose +1.64% to 4,716.7 dollars and copper +1.63% to 6.7065 dollars.
Korea–U.S. mutual following — overnight grading
A window on which market followed which
Yesterday Korea did not follow — today the signal is reversed
Overnight US readings pointed up: the SOX semiconductor index +1.44%, the Nasdaq +0.66%, the S&P 500 +0.32% and the Dow +0.3%.EWY, the US-listed Korea ETF, rose the most at +3.75% — it is the early read on how foreign investors price Korea.Yesterday morning the arrangement was the exact opposite, and Korea did not follow it that day.
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 139.No-follow days run at roughly one in six, so an overnight rise is not read forward into a narrower call for today.
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
Overnight US and Nikkei futures all sat close to flat
Overnight world futures stood at 7,690.75 for S&P 500 futures (+0.01%), 29,287.5 for Nasdaq 100 futures (+0.08%) and 66,000.0 for Nikkei (CME, yen) futures (+0.11%), measured on the 05:00 KST bar of 26 August against the previous Korean close bar at 15:00 KST on 25 August.All that can be said is that the futures did not follow the cash session higher; 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 gap is decided there. has not started — watch whether foreign buyers return
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: whether EWY’s +3.75% rise carries into foreign buying after the open, and whether yesterday’s -38,140 hundred million won of foreign selling continues.
Previous-Day Review
A window that retraces what happened in the previous session
Yesterday — the outside pointed down and Korea did not follow
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.A sudden rise in the balance indicates capital gathering behind a fall in that name.
Sentiment moved up to anxious, lifted by the leverage component
The composite sentiment score is 0.937, placing the stage at anxious, up from neutral a day earlier.The highest component is the leveraged-ETF share at the 99th percentile, followed by 20-day realised volatility at the 91th.Margin lending (5.7) 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. (0.6) arrive a day late from the association, and the short-selling balance (5.01) two days late, dated 20 August.
The gauge has read anxious on 38 days this year.On the following session KOSPI averaged +0.53% with a median of +0.74% and rose on 55.3% of them, spanning -3.25% to +3.56% across the quartiles — too wide to narrow the direction.The standard deviation of 5.65 is wider than on neutral days — a higher stage means the swing widens rather than that a direction has been set.
Today is not a day on which the gauge tripped a specific trigger; the retail buying share, counted only on down days, is marked not applicable because yesterday was an up day.The domestic gauge is measured after the Korean close, so it is used to explain today and not as a basis for betting on tomorrow.
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 again absent this morning
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; they will be carried once a later edition fills them in.What can be shown is the dollar index, at 98.918, a move of -0.08% — 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 two days of gains
Warning
A window flagging in advance where today’s session calls for caution
The leverage share has moved to the top of this year’s range
The leveraged-ETF component of the sentiment gauge has moved to the 99th percentile, meaning capital has gathered in products that track twice the daily index move.When that share is high, a small index decline can compound with selling from doubly exposed holders and deepen the fall — which is not to say it happens today.The crash-precursor score stands at 2 (caution), and the only item behind it is the US-listed SK hynix American Depositary Receipt (ADR)A certificate issued by a US bank allowing shares of a non-US company to trade on a US market.It shows where the same company traded in the United States before the Korean market opens., a reading from 28 July rather than a signal switched on today.