The KOSPI plunged by nearly 30% this month alone, causing record-breaking milestones set in the first half of the year to collapse one after another.

The annual return, which once boasted over 100%, dropped below 50%, falling behind the Taiwan stock market, while the market capitalization plummeted by 2 trillion won in about a month.

Samsung Electronics also dropped out of the 1 trillion dollar club.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 28th, the KOSPI plummeted 10.84% today, marking the fourth-largest decline in history.

This represents a sharp 35.8% drop from its intraday high (9,385.59) recorded on June 19.

In particular, foreign investors net sold more than 4.9663 trillion won worth of shares in the KOSPI today alone, marking the 12th largest net selling scale on record.

The KOSDAQ also fell 7.72%, recording its fourth-steepest decline this year.

It dropped 42% from its intraday high (1,229.42) reached on April 27.

At one point, circuit breakers (CBs) were triggered, temporarily suspending trading for 20 minutes across all stocks in the stock market, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ plummeted.

This is the third time this year that circuit breakers have been simultaneously triggered in both markets, following March 4 and June 8.

Prior to the activation of the circuit breakers, program trading sell sidecars, which suspend the validity of sell quotes for 5 minutes, were also triggered in each market.

Including buy sidecars, the number of sidecar activations reaches an astonishing 42 times for the KOSPI and 26 times for the KOSDAQ this year.

According to financial information service provider Yonhap Infomax, the KOSPI has fallen 28.24% since the beginning of this month.

This decline is much larger than the 19.89% drop recorded in March, when the market suffered a massive shock due to the outbreak of war between the United States and Iran.

The KOSPI rose 23.97% in January and 19.52% in February, declined in March, and then rebounded by 25.04% in April.

In May, when it successively broke through the 7,000 and 8,000 points milestones, it gained 26.68%, followed by a 3.56% increase in June.

Consequently, the annual return, which stood at 101.14% for the first half of the year as of the end of last month, retreated to 42.94% due to this month's consecutive declines.

According to Investing.com, a provider of global stock market information, when considering only benchmark indices excluding large-cap indices like the KOSPI 50, Taiwan's Weighted Index, which maintains an annual return of 50%, pushed the KOSPI down to second place and claimed the top spot in returns.

The KOSPI's market capitalization, which once approached 7,500 trillion won, sharply dropped to the 4,000 trillion won range.

The market capitalization of the KOSPI stood at 4,958.5071 trillion won today, falling below 5 trillion won for the first time since April 15 (4,995.5123 trillion won).

After hitting an all-time high of 7,449.5927 trillion won on June 22, the KOSPI's market cap began a gradual decline and has remained in the 4,000 trillion won range since the 13th of this month.

As the KOSDAQ also dropped sharply alongside the KOSPI, the combined market capitalization of the domestic stock market across both exchanges stood at 5,348.6316 trillion won.

Although it had swelled to 7,993.3961 trillion won on June 22, the upward momentum was broken just before reaching the 8,000 trillion won threshold.

The KOSPI's top two heavyweights, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, plummeted by over 13% and 14% respectively today. Samsung Electronics recorded a 41% drop from its intraday high of 374,500 won on June 19, while SK Hynix fell 48% from its high of 2,987,000 won on June 25.

In particular, Samsung Electronics' market capitalization shrank significantly, causing it to fall out of the 1 trillion dollar club today.

Samsung Electronics' market cap was recorded at 1,286.1812 trillion won today, which translates to about 880 billion dollars based on the won-dollar exchange rate at 4:00 PM (1,461.50 won per dollar).

As a result, its global market capitalization ranking also dropped.

According to US market capitalization tracking site CompaniesMarketCap.com, Samsung Electronics ranked 15th.

Considering that Samsung Electronics' share price and market cap were less reflected due to time zone differences, there is a possibility that it may yield the 15th spot to JPMorgan Chase, which is ranked 16th, once fully reflected.

Samsung Electronics had previously surpassed Meta to rank 10th on June 2.

SK Hynix remains at 19th place.

Regarding this, Kim Sun-woo, an analyst at Meritz Securities, analyzed, "Looking at the annual stock price fluctuation rates of memory companies this year, SanDisk is up 364.4%, Kioxia 327.6%, Micron 185.4%, SK Hynix 133.3%, and Samsung Electronics 71.5%." He evaluated that "Despite efforts for re-evaluation such as issuing American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics have underperformed compared to Micron, entering an extreme undervaluation zone."

(Photo: Yonhap News)