Black Monday: KOSPI Plunges 8.95%, Falls Below 7,000

[Anchor]

The KOSPI has fallen below the 7,000 mark, with a circuit breaker triggered to temporarily halt trading. Amid recurring concerns that the semiconductor market has peaked, leveraged ETFs for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have amplified volatility and deepened the decline.

Reporter Jeong Seong-jin has the story.

[Reporter]

The KOSPI opened slightly lower at 7,412 and, after fluctuating, rapidly accelerated its decline.

A sell-side sidecar was triggered as the KOSPI 200 futures index fell by more than 5%, and the 7,000 mark was breached just past noon.

Subsequently, a circuit breaker was activated, halting trading for 20 minutes due to the sharp drop of over 8%.

This marks the 7th circuit breaker this year and the 13th in history.

The KOSPI eventually closed at 6,806, a plunge of nearly 9%, returning to levels seen about two months ago.

The sharp decline was largely driven by the crash of the two market leaders, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

SK Hynix plummeted more than 15%, falling below the 2 million won mark and dropping into the 1.8 million won range, while Samsung Electronics closed at the 250,000 won level, down 10%.

While individual investors net-bought nearly 4 trillion won, institutional and foreign investors net-sold 2.2 trillion won and 1.7 trillion won, respectively, pulling the index down.

Analysts point to a combination of factors: the persistent "semiconductor peak theory"—the belief that the memory market has passed its prime due to slowing AI investment—and heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the weekend, which triggered a flood of profit-taking and risk-aversion selling.

[Interview: Seok Byung-hoon / Professor of Economics, Ewha Womans University : Until new evidence emerges that investment demand related to AI will continue to grow, the possibility of a correction due to profit-taking and concerns over a market peak appears high for the time being.]

It is also analyzed that leveraged volatility further exacerbated the decline, as single-stock leveraged products for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix all hit record lows.

The total market capitalization of the domestic stock market, which had surpassed 8,000 trillion won last month to rank 6th in the world, has fallen to the 6,000 trillion won range, dropping two spots to 8th globally.

Reported by Shin Jin-soo | Video edited by Yoon Tae-ho | Graphics by Park Tae-young
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.