WiretechnologyBrief
Wall Street’s AI Sell-Off Spills Into Seoul, Sinking KOSPI Below 5,000
South Korea’s KOSPI fell below 5,000 on Friday for the first time since February. An 8% slide after the open triggered a circuit breaker, halting trading for 20 minutes. SK Hynix shareholders absorbed one of the sharpest losses.
Brief
The KOSPI dropped below 5,000 on Friday, a level it had not breached since February, after an 8% fall soon after the open triggered a 20-minute trading halt. SK Hynix shares tumbled 11.71% to 1,116,000 won despite record quarterly sales reported last week, while Samsung Electronics lost 9.98%. The slide began on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 fell 4.36% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sank 12.25% on Thursday. The report ties the pressure to incoming governors in Texas, Georgia and Ohio who pledged to restrict new data centers, Qualcomm's 26% drop in phone chip sales, and doubts about AI spending. Since Korean chipmakers sit close to these forces, the KOSPI was exposed.
Why it matters: It shows how a sell-off in US tech stocks can quickly reach Korean chipmakers, whose large weight in the index magnifies shocks from abroad.
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