Buttressed by retail investors’ optimism over continual stock rallies in the South Korean stock market, the nation’s main bourse, the Kospi, logged an all-time closing high for the third consecutive session Tuesday, the ex-dividend date.

The Kospi began trading at 2,810.55, up 1.95 points or 0.07 percent from the previous session’s close. It fluctuated up and down, hovering around the 2,800 mark until closer to the end of trading. After the sudden upward move, the index closed at 2,820.51.

Retail investors scooped up nearly 2.2 trillion won ($2.01 billion), the second-largest amount of daily net purchasing in the market’s history. (The record was 2.22 trillion won on Nov. 30.) Both foreign and institutional investors turned into net sellers after buying local shares for three consecutive sessions, with the former dumping a net 319.1 billion won and the latter posting record-breaking sales of 1.97 trillion won.

Among large-cap shares in the market, biopharmaceuticals giant Celltrion spiked 10.08 percent, while rechargeable battery maker Samsung SDI surged 7.51 percent. Pharmaceuticals giant Samsung Biologics and major home appliance maker LG Electronics gained 4.18 percent and 5.62 percent, respectively.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics dropped 0.51 percent and leading chemicals firm LG Chem lost 0.12 percent. Leading construction and trading firm Samsung C&T and steelmaker Posco fell 2.5 percent and 1.28 percent, respectively. Top mobile carrier SK Telecom slipped 3.85 percent.

Overnight, all three major US stock indexes reached all-time closing highs after President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion coronavirus aid package. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.68 percent, while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 advanced 0.74 percent and 0.87 percent, respectively.

“Worries over the COVID-19 variant from the UK, combined with the ex-dividend date, resulted in institutions’ massive sell-offs putting strong downward pressure on the index. However, upon growing expectations for the US’ additional pump-priming policy, investor sentiment was slightly improved,” said Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities.

The tech-heavy Kosdaq set its yearly high of 957.48 in intraday trading and hit a fresh record high, closing at 957.41. The secondary bourse started off higher, at 928.58, then rose sharply throughout the day, advancing 30.41 points or 3.28 percent from the previous session’s close at the closing bell.

In contrast with institutional investors’ net sales of 289.6 billion won, small domestic investors purchased a net 261 billion won, while foreigners bought 80.7 billion won worth of local shares and hoisted the index.

Meanwhile, the local currency closed at 1,092.1 won against the US greenback, strengthening 4.6 won, or 0.42 percent, from the previous session’s close.

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)