Photo : YONHAP News
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index(KOSPI) plunged more than eight percent in early trade Friday, prompting authorities to activate a circuit breaker.
The Korea Exchange activated a 20-minute trading halt at 9:03 a.m. after the benchmark KOSPI tumbled 459-point-19 points, or eight-point-52 percent, from from the previous day’s close to sit at four-thousand-924-point-61.
It is the first time that the main bourse dipped under five-thousand points since February 6, and Friday’s circuit breaker marked the 11th triggered so far this year.
A sell-side “sidecar” mechanism was activated at 9:34 a.m., after the KOSPI 200 Futures index shed 56-point-eight points, or six-point-77 percent, from the previous session to 781 points.
Major U.S. indexes tumbled overnight as investor anxiety mounted over how the Democrats’ sweeping midterm victory might derail planned AI data center expansions.
A program sell order was issued on the tech-heavy KOSDAQ at 9:06 a.m., after the KOSDAQ 150 Futures index fell seven-point-84 percent from the previous session to one-thousand-29 points, and the spot index fell eight-point-one percent to one-thousand-27-point-12.