The decline was led by Samsung Electronics, which opened down 9.3 percent at 298,500 won (US$192.2), and SK Hynix, down 8.0 percent at 1,904,000 won. The two memory-chip giants account for a substantial share of the KOSPI's market value, and their fall alone explains much of the gap lower. The damage was near-total across the board, with 1,621 stocks declining against just 48 gainers, marking a broad liquidation rather than the narrow chip-versus-value rotation of recent sessions.
One signal cut against the panic. Foreign investors were net buyers of 48.0 billion won in the opening minutes and institutions added 10.4 billion won, while individuals sold 37.7 billion won, a pattern that, if sustained, would interrupt the foreign net-selling streak that has run through Korean market coverage for weeks and suggest overseas funds were treating the drop as an entry point.
The collapse followed a brutal session on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq Composite fell 1,121.5 points to 25,709.4 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 695.2 points to 50,866.8 on Friday. The selling concentrated in chipmakers, and pre-market indications for Korea's two largest semiconductor names pointed to losses of roughly 10 percent before Seoul opened.
The junior KOSDAQ, home to smaller technology and biotechnology names, fell 7.4 percent to 928.1, and the KOSPI 200 dropped 8.5 percent to 1,186.4. The breadth of the move, with declines outnumbering advances by more than thirty to one, left little room to read the session as anything other than a wholesale repricing of risk.
Currency markets did not amplify the equity stress. The won firmed slightly, with the dollar buying 1,553.0 won, down 6.5 from the prior reference, as the dollar index held at 100.1. A stable won removes one channel through which a sell-off can feed on itself, though it does little to offset the scale of the equity move.
The trigger traces to a semiconductor-specific shock in the United States rather than a broad macroeconomic shift, which is why the pain is most acute in chip-heavy indices across the region. The Nikkei 225 fell 882.6 points to 66,588.1 on Friday and the Shanghai Composite eased 30.1 points to 4,027.7, but neither matched the violence of Seoul's open, a reflection of how heavily the KOSPI leans on its two memory-chip names.
Whether Monday marks a genuine repricing of the artificial intelligence trade or a single-session capitulation will turn on what foreign buyers do once the opening volatility settles. For now, the breadth of the decline says the market is no longer rotating within itself. It is selling everything at once.
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