South Korea's KOSPI gave up an early surge above 7,200 and closed at 6,869.83 on the 18th, down 108.11 points, or 1.55%, from 6,977.94 a session earlier. The benchmark opened at 7,127.77 and climbed as high as 7,216.62 before momentum faded around 10 a.m. and selling pushed it back into the 6,800 range. Institutional investors were the main driver of the reversal, unloading a net ₩784.9 billion in KOSPI shares, while retail investors bought a net ₩731.3 billion and foreign investors bought a net ₩91.4 billion, not enough to offset the selling. Foreign demand also weakened sharply through the day: net spot buying on the main board shrank from ₩1.52 trillion early in the session to ₩46.7 billion by the regular close, and KOSPI 200 futures (contracts tracking the benchmark's large-cap index) buying narrowed from more than ₩800 billion to ₩148.6 billion. Large-cap shares were broadly weaker, with Samsung Electronics down 2.19%, Samsung Electro-Mechanics falling 7.57%, and LG Energy Solution losing 5.01%, while SK Hynix held onto a 1.03% gain after rising more than 7% intraday. The KOSDAQ underperformed, dropping 3.52% to 834.20 as institutions sold a net ₩416.3 billion and secondary battery and biotech stocks posted some of the steepest losses. The won closed at ₩1,411.8 per dollar, down ₩1.2 from the previous session's daytime close. The session highlighted a sharp pullback in risk appetite as institutional profit-taking and fading foreign buying hit the growth shares that had led the recent advance.