🌏 KOSPI −0.6%, Nikkei flat — how to read a split day
Japan and Korea slipped, Hong Kong and Shanghai rose, and the yen jumped late — Friday's Asia session, explained in plain words.
Asia ended Friday split down the middle: Tokyo and Seoul slipped while Hong Kong and Shanghai edged higher.
📊 The Dashboard — Friday 7 August
Quick refresher: an index is one number that averages many stocks, so you can read a whole market at a glance.
| Number | Close | Move | What this move means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nikkei 225 (Japan) | 65,606.71 | −0.12% | Essentially flat — chip stocks fell, most of the rest held. |
| KOSPI (South Korea) | 6,258.7 | −0.60% | Second down day in a row; a strong open faded by the close. |
| Hang Seng (Hong Kong) | — | +0.43% | A steady grind higher, outpacing the mainland. |
| Shanghai Composite (China) | — | +0.17% | Barely moved — a genuinely quiet day. |
| USD/JPY (yen per dollar) | ≈157.2 late | yen stronger | The dollar bought fewer yen after weak US jobs news landed. |
🌏 The SEA watch
A standing section of this edition: Southeast Asia’s numbers, every issue. Not because we expect trouble — but because this region often tells you things the big global indexes don’t, and we’d rather teach you to read it before it’s in the headlines than after.
| Number | Close | Move | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| STI (Singapore) | 5,698.43 | ▲ +1.05% | Bank earnings did the lifting — DBS reported a record profit, and banks are a third of this index. |
| USD/SGD | 1.2779 | ▼ −0.40% | The US dollar bought fewer Singapore dollars after the weak US jobs number — a “down” here means the SGD got stronger. |
In rotation next: SET (Thailand), JCI (Indonesia), VN-Index (Vietnam), USD/THB, USD/IDR — a different Southeast Asia number each issue, so over a few weeks you learn to read the whole neighbourhood. Source: Yahoo Finance Singapore.
Where you see only a percentage, the source we verified reported the move but not the closing level — we never print a number we haven't checked.
What happened, in plain words
- Seoul: the KOSPI opened more than 1% higher, then spent the day giving it back. Memory-chip maker SK Hynix fell 4.9% while Samsung Electronics edged up 0.2%. An index is an average, so one falling heavyweight can drag the whole number down even when its neighbour rises.
- Tokyo: same lesson. SoftBank dropped 2.5% and chipmaker Kioxia 2.1%, yet the Nikkei lost only 0.12% — the other 200-plus stocks in the average roughly held their ground.
- The yen: after Asian markets went home, the US reported that its economy lost 23,000 jobs in July when a gain was expected. The dollar fell as much as 1.1% against the yen to 156.68 before settling near 157.16. Context matters here: in July the dollar touched 163.99 yen — the yen's weakest in about 40 years — and Japan's finance minister says Tokyo and Washington are "closely communicating" about intervention (when a government buys or sells its own currency to push the price).
One more reading habit: USD/JPY is quoted as yen per dollar, so when the number falls, the yen is getting stronger. It reads backwards at first — a smaller number means a stronger yen — and it's the single most common beginner trip-up in Asian FX, which is why we'll repeat it until it's boring.
⭐ Learn to read this: the open-to-close path
The KOSPI's closing number says "mildly bad day." The path says more: it opened up 1.09% at 6,365, touched 6,415, and finished down 0.60%. When a market opens strong and closes weak, sellers absorbed the whole rally — that fade is information the single closing number hides. Whenever a move surprises you, check where the day started.
📅 Monday
Watch whether the yen holds its jump when Tokyo reopens, and whether Korean chip stocks steady after Friday's slide.
We explain; we never advise. Nothing here is investment advice.
Financial Literature is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing here is investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Content is impersonal and not tailored to any individual. Data may contain errors — verify before relying on it. Sources: TradingKey (Nikkei, KOSPI closes), 24/7 Wall St. (Hang Seng, Shanghai), Reuters via Yahoo Finance (yen).
— The Editorial Team
