South Korean stocks opened lower Wednesday, tracking overnight losses on Wall Street ahead of the Jackson Hole meeting later this week.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) dropped 5.28 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,691.35 in the first 15 minutes of trading.

Overnight, major US indexes lost ground to take a breather from a recent rally, with AI chip giant Nvidia down more than 2 percent.

Investors' eyes are on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the upcoming Jackson Hole meeting to start on Thursday (US time), which will give clues on the Fed's monetary policy direction.

In Seoul, market bellwether Samsung Electronics and its chipmaking rival SK hynix retreated 0.89 percent and 3.46 percent, respectively, tracking Nvidia's slide.

Ship maker HD Hyundai Heavy plunged 2.37 percent.

But leading battery maker LG Energy Solution jumped 2.58 percent, and top chemical producer LG Chem gained 1.37 percent.

Major biopharmaceutical firms Samsung Biologics and Celltrion also increased 1.76 percent and 1.53 percent, respectively.

The local currency was trading at 1,329.9 won against the US dollar, up 3.3 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)