[Anchor]
The KOSPI, which hit an all-time high yesterday (June 22), plummeted by nearly 10% today. The index fell by 910 points in a single day, marking the largest point drop in the 46-year history of the KOSPI.
Reporter Lee Tae-kwon has the story.
[Reporter]
The KOSPI started slightly lower, briefly climbed to 9,175 early in the session, but soon turned downward.
As the decline deepened, a sell-side sidecar was triggered. In the afternoon, the index fell by more than 8%, leading to a circuit breaker that halted trading for 20 minutes.
Even after trading resumed, the index failed to rebound and eventually closed at 8,203, a plunge of nearly 10%.
The 910-point drop is the largest in history in terms of point decline.
The number of sidecar triggers has reached 27 this year, surpassing the total record set during the 2008 global financial crisis.
Although individual investors net-bought over 8 trillion won, it was not enough to stop the index from falling.
Amid growing expectations of a potential interest rate hike in the U.S., a wave of panic selling, particularly in semiconductor stocks, caused the index to collapse.
SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics both fell by 12%, closing at 2,555,000 won and 310,000 won, respectively.
Leveraged ETFs, which track double the daily performance of these two stocks, also plummeted by 24% to 26% today alone.
Some point out that leveraged products have exacerbated volatility during this sharp market correction.
The trading value of single-stock leveraged ETFs reached approximately 17.4 trillion won today, accounting for one-third of the total KOSPI trading volume.
[Lee Jin-woo / Head of Research Center, Meritz Securities: There was fatigue from the market's rapid short-term gains, and as this overlapped with a deepening correction, the impact was multiplied when leverage became concentrated in specific stocks.]
Financial authorities are monitoring the rapid market volatility caused by leveraged products and are exploring potential safety measures.
Options such as increasing the required deposit amount for investing in leveraged products or strengthening investor education are being discussed.
(Reported by Lim Woo-sik | Video by Lee Seung-jin | Graphics by Kang Yoon-jung and Jang Chae-woo)
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