South Korea\u2019s stock benchmark plunged nearly 9 per cent on Monday, tripping circuit breakers, after robust US jobs data lifted bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike and unleashed a selloff in the tech-heavy market that had powered the broader AI rally.<\/p>\n
The Kospi fell as much as 8.8 per cent in early trade, as chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped more than 10 per cent each.<\/p>\n
The two chipmakers have been the driving force behind the index\u2019s world-beating surge, buoyed by record profits. <\/p>\n
Their market capitalisations this year alone have jumped more than 150 per cent and 200 per cent, respectively, now accounting for over half of the benchmark and propelling them into the $1 trillion club.<\/p>\n
Circuit breakers were activated at 12.03am Irish time, halting trading for 20 minutes for the first time in three months. It was the third time they were triggered this year, and the ninth in history.<\/p>\n
Another \u201csidecar\u201d trading curb was activated as soon as circuit breakers were lifted, cutting the Kospi\u2019s losses to 5.9 per cent as of 4.48am.<\/p>\n
The won was up 0.7 per cent at 1,548.9 per dollar, rebounding from Friday\u2019s 1,615 \u2013 its weakest since March 2009 \u2013 after authorities convened an emergency meeting and vowed firm action against speculative trading.<\/p>\n
Foreign exchange officials on Monday renewed their warning, with traders suspecting authorities to be conducting dollar-selling intervention to cap the won\u2019s losses. \u201cHowever, we will have to see if the 1,550 level will be defended,\u201d one trader said.<\/p>\n
Brent crude climbed 3.7 per cent to above $96.50 a barrel after Israel said it struck several military targets in Iran, retaliating against missile attacks by Tehran. <\/p>\n
Higher oil prices will add further pressure to inflation, and that coupled with strong US jobs data, helped boost bets for higher Fed interest rates.<\/p>\n
The selloff in stocks followed a torrid session on Wall Street on Friday. The Nasdaq fell 4.2 per cent after strong payrolls data killed any hopes of further interest rate cuts, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slumped 10 per cent and iShares MSCI South Korea ETF plunged 14 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cA surprise in US employment data triggered bond yield rises and provided an excuse for correction in an overheated market amid accumulated pressure from the surge in semiconductor stocks,\u201d said Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreased volatility is inevitable, but it is unlikely that the rout will go on for several days, given that the Kospi\u2019s valuation pressure has been lowered by recent correction and earnings momentum remains robust for semiconductor stocks,\u201d Han said.<\/p>\n
In a press conference marking his first year in office on Monday, president Lee Jae Myung, who has rolled out a range of policies to boost the domestic stock market since taking office in June 2025, said the market was \u201cstill undervalued.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee described the current exchange rate as temporary and abnormal, pointing to foreign investors selling local stocks for portfolio rebalancing as the primary factor weighing on the won in the near term.<\/p>\n
Shares of SK Hynix, a major supplier of advanced chips to Nvidia, cut losses to 3.8 per cent, after the US AI chipmaker\u2019s CEO, Jensen Huang, said the company remains its \u201cbiggest partner\u201d while unveiling new deals during his trip to South Korea.<\/p>\n
E-commerce firm Naver was a rare outlier among index heavyweights, rising 14.1 per cent on a deal with Nvidia.<\/p>\n
Foreigners were net sellers of local shares worth 1.2 trillion won, extending their selloff to 21 consecutive sessions.<\/p>\n
Despite Monday\u2019s losses, the Kospi is up 83 per cent year-to-date. In 2025, it rose 76 per cent for its biggest gain since 1999 and the top performance among major global markets last year. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea\u2019s stock benchmark plunged nearly 9 per cent on Monday, tripping circuit breakers, after robust US jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[218,72,113,61,11829,60,3410,233,6000],"class_list":["post-488650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-nvidia","tag-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}