Kospi tumbles past 8,000 as sidecar triggers for 30th time this year

The Kospi plunged in early trading Thursday, breaking back below the 8,000 mark for the first time in 15 trading sessions. The sharp decline triggered a sidecar — a temporary suspension of program sell orders — for the 30th time this year, underscoring the extreme volatility gripping South Korea's benchmark index.

Korea Exchange data showed the Kospi at 7,792.57 as of 9:27 a.m. Thursday, down 6.15% on the day. The index opened at 7,933.10, already 370.31 points, or 4.46%, below the previous close, before extending its losses.

The last time the index fell below 8,000 during trading was June 11, making Thursday's breach the first in 15 sessions.

As share prices tumbled, Korea Exchange halted program sell orders for five minutes at around 9:07 a.m. after a sharp move in the KOSPI 200 futures index triggered the sidecar mechanism. At the time of activation, the KOSPI 200 futures index stood at 1,255.94, down 80.92 points, or 6.05%, from the previous session's close.

A sell-side sidecar is triggered when the KOSPI 200 futures index falls 5% or more and holds that level for at least one minute. Thursday's activation was the 30th sidecar of the year — 15 on the sell side and 15 on the buy side — reflecting the heightened volatility that has accompanied the Kospi's sharp rally this year.

All top market-cap stocks were in the red, with the two dominant semiconductor names that have led the domestic market's advance suffering particularly steep declines.

Samsung Electronics fell 6.84% to 293,000 won ($189), while SK hynix dropped 8.05% to 2.354 million won.

The selloff followed steep losses on Wall Street on Wednesday, where shares of US memory chip makers Micron Technology and SanDisk each fell more than 10%. AMD dropped 6.89% and Intel lost 9.03%, while Nvidia, the bellwether AI chip stock, slipped 1.25%.

Analysts attributed the broad weakness to intensifying profit-taking in AI-related semiconductor stocks, which had posted outsized gains in recent months.

SK Square, Samsung Electronics preferred shares, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution were also all trading lower.

By investor type, retail investors were net buyers of 2.35 trillion won and institutions net buyers of 245.5 billion won, while foreign investors were net sellers of 2.65 trillion won.

The Kosdaq was also under pressure, falling 4.63% to 886.35 at the same time. Top market-cap stocks including Alteogen, Ecopro BM, Ecopro and Jusung Engineering were all lower. Retail investors were net buyers of 146.2 billion won and institutions net buyers of 18.8 billion won, while foreign investors were net sellers of 171.4 billion won.