South Korean shares plunged more than 8 percent on Wednesday, prompting the stock exchange to temporarily halt trading on the benchmark Kospi and secondary Kosdaq markets, as risk-averse sentiment intensified following US-Israel strikes on Iran.
The Korea Exchange activated a circuit breaker to suspend trading on the Kospi for 20 minutes at around 11:19 a.m., after the index fell more than 8 percent for over a minute. The move followed a separate trading suspension on the Kosdaq, which was triggered at 11:16 a.m.
A circuit breaker is triggered when an index plunges more than 8 percent from the previous session’s closing level and remains at or below that threshold for at least one minute.
At the time, the Kospi had fallen to 5,322.93, down 8.1 percent from the previous session’s close, while the Kosdaq dropped to 1,045.24, losing 8.13 percent.
It marked the first time the Korea Exchange had activated circuit breakers on both markets since Aug. 5, 2024.
Earlier in the day, the bourse operator had already triggered sell-side sidecars on both the Kospi and Kosdaq, halting program trading for five minutes. The Kospi sidecar was activated at 9:06 a.m., shortly after the market opened, while the Kosdaq sidecar was triggered at 10:31 a.m.
silverstar@heraldcorp.com
