First-Ever Consecutive Days of Joint Circuit Breakers as Shares Plunge Another 6%

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Today (July 29) was another frightening day to open the stock trading window. After plunging nearly 11% yesterday, the KOSPI tumbled another 6% today, sliding down to the 5,600 level. As major semiconductor stocks faltered, circuit breakers were triggered on both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ for the second consecutive day in history.

Reporter Lee Tae-gwon has the story.

[Reporter]

Bouncing back from yesterday's plunge, the KOSPI opened higher and rebounded by up to 3% in early trading on an influx of bargain hunting, but soon turned downward and expanded its losses.

Following a sell-side sidecar, a circuit breaker was triggered, temporarily suspending trading for 20 minutes, and the index briefly plummeted more than 12% during the session to slip to the 5,200 range.

Later, as institutional buying flooded in and trimmed the losses, the KOSPI closed down 5.9% from yesterday at 5,663.

The KOSDAQ index also plummeted, triggering a circuit breaker. It is the first time in history that circuit breakers have been triggered on both markets for two consecutive days.

In the KOSPI market, retail and foreign investors net sold 1.9 trillion won and 1.2 trillion won, respectively, dragging down the index.

SK Hynix briefly plunged nearly 20% during the session before ending trade down 9.6% from yesterday in the 1.4 million won range, while Samsung Electronics also fell as low as the 180,000 won range before closing down 5% in the 200,000 won range.

Analysts suggest that while SK Hynix announced record-high earnings, they fell short of market expectations, and investor sentiment shrank amid concerns over the sustainability of AI investments, leading to panic selling.

[Kim Jae-seung / Researcher, Hyundai Motor Securities: With considerable concerns right now over a peak-out, the fact itself that it failed to meet market expectations seems to amplify worries that earnings are forming a peak and gradually declining.]

Amid tumbling stock markets day after day, retail investors' fear and anxiety are also growing.

[Retail Investor: Summer is hot, but my domestic stock market is cold, you know. I'd rather not look at it, but they say if you just bury it away it goes back up...]

As sharp volatility persists, investor deposits, which serve as waiting funds for the stock market, plunged by over 20% from 139.6948 trillion won early last month, shrinking to 107.1994 trillion won.

(Video reporting: Kim Nam-sung, Ha Ryung | Video editing: Choi Jin-hwa | VJ: Jung Han-wook | Design: Kim Han-gil)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.