Korea's Kospi Slumps as Wall Street's AI Selloff Spills Over
By Kwanwoo Jun
South Korean stocks plunged early Friday, with the benchmark Kospi falling more than 8%, as chipmakers tumbled on artificial-intelligence worries following the Democratic sweep in the U.S. midterm elections.
The sharp selloff in the benchmark index, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world's two largest memory-chip makers and suppliers of high bandwidth-memory to AI chip giant Nvidia, triggered a temporary trading halt.
The Kospi opened 2.2% lower and quickly extended its decline to 8.6%, prompting the Korea Exchange to suspend trading for 20 minutes on the main bourse to curb volatility. The market operator also activated a five-minute trading halt on the smaller tech-heavy Kosdaq market.
SK Hynix shares plunged as much as 14% to 1,089,000 won, leading the he semiconductor sector's declines, while Samsung Electronics fell up to 11% to 179,200 won.
The selloff mirrored an overnight rout among U.S. peers, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq suffering its largest one-day drop in more than a year on Thursday.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for nearly half of the Kospi's total market capitalization.
Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 05, 2026 20:47 ET (01:47 GMT)
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