[Anchor]
Influenced by the historic plunge on the U.S. Nasdaq overnight, South Korea's KOSPI index has also broken below the 5,000 mark. Circuit breakers were triggered just three minutes after the market opened.
Here is a report from reporter Min Gyeongho.
[Reporter]
Starting 2.24% lower, the KOSPI plummeted right after the market opened, dropping more than 8% within three minutes to fall below the 5,000 threshold.
As a flood of sell orders poured in, a circuit breaker was triggered at 9:03 AM, halting trading for 20 minutes.
This is the first time since last February that the KOSPI has recorded figures in the 4,000s during trading.
Within about three minutes, foreign investors net-sold 130 billion won, while institutional and individual investors net-bought 86 billion won and 42 billion won, respectively.
As of 9:45 AM, after the circuit breaker was lifted, the KOSPI stood at 5,003.
Samsung Electronics is trading in the 180,000-won range, down by over 7%, while SK Hynix is showing figures in the 1.14 million-won range, down over 9%.
The sharp decline in the KOSPI appears to have been driven by the Nasdaq recording its largest drop on record overnight.
The Nasdaq plummeted 5.52% amid growing concerns that data center regulations could be tightened as the Democratic Party swept both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the U.S. midterm elections.
Immediately following the end of the midterm elections, shares of hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet rose while infrastructure companies including semiconductors plunged, but this time all sectors appeared to take a hit.
In particular, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index crashed 12.2%, and the KOSPI, where Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix account for nearly half of the market capitalization, could not avoid the impact.
Due to the sharp drop in the KOSPI, a sell-side car was also triggered on the KOSDAQ.
The KOSDAQ is currently at 640, with individual and foreign investors net-selling in the 60 billion-won range.
(Video by Lee Sang-min)
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