The trading board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday, when the Kospi plunged nearly 5% [Yonhap]
The trading board at Hana Bank's dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday, when the Kospi plunged nearly 5% [Yonhap]

The Kospi plunged more than 8% intraday on Tuesday, triggering a circuit breaker amid extreme volatility, before recovering some ground to close nearly 5% lower above the 7,600 level.

The selloff came despite Samsung Electronics reporting second-quarter earnings that beat market expectations by a wide margin. Foreign investors drove the decline with a 13th consecutive session of heavy net selling, while semiconductor heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK hynix each tumbled around 10% at their intraday lows, deepening market anxiety.

According to Korea Exchange, the Kospi closed at 7,656.31, down 395.02 points, or 4.91%, from Monday. The closing level was 18% below the intraday peak of 9,385.59 recorded on June 19.

The index opened down 132.13 points, or 1.64%, at 7,919.20 and extended losses through the session, with the decline steepening in the afternoon. At its worst, the benchmark fell as far as 7,389.22 — a drop of 8.22% — before recovering to close above 7,600.

As the market sold off sharply, a sidecar — a temporary suspension of program sell orders — was triggered on the main bourse at around 10:23 a.m. The mechanism activates when the KOSPI 200 futures index falls more than 5% and holds that level for at least one minute.

A circuit breaker halting all trading on the main bourse for 20 minutes was then triggered at around 1:51 p.m., after the Kospi had fallen more than 8% from the previous session's closing level for at least one minute.

The gap between the day's high and low reached 565.33 points. As the index fell, the Kospi's total market capitalization shrank to about 6,266 trillion won ($4.09 trillion), roughly 5% less than Monday's figure.

Foreign investors were the primary sellers, posting net selling of 2.93 trillion won on the main bourse — extending their selling streak to 13 consecutive trading sessions. Institutional investors also leaned toward selling, with net selling of 310.8 billion won. Retail investors stood alone on the buy side, recording net purchases of 3.14 trillion won.

Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday that its preliminary second-quarter operating profit surged 1,810% year-on-year to 89.4 trillion won, surpassing the market consensus of 84.16 trillion won by about 5 trillion won. Even so, the blowout result failed to lift the broader market.

The country's two semiconductor giants led the decline. Samsung Electronics closed down 6.92% at 296,000 won, surrendering the 300,000-won threshold it had held. The stock had opened down 3.46% and at one point plunged more than 10% intraday to 286,000 won.

SK hynix fell 6.06% to close at 2.201 million won — about 26% below its recent peak of 2.987 million won reached on June 25. The stock opened down 2.30% and at one point slid more than 11% intraday to 2.08 million won.

LG Energy Solution dropped 6.35% after its second-quarter earnings missed market expectations, while Hanwha Ocean plunged 22.65% after it was not selected for Canada's next-generation submarine procurement program. Other top-eight Kospi stocks by market capitalization also fell across the board: SK Square lost 9.30%, Samsung Electro-Mechanics 9.85%, Hyundai Motor 4.48%, Samsung Life 4.70% and Samsung C&T 5.56%.

A handful of stocks bucked the trend. Samsung Biologics gained 1.21%, KB Financial Group 1.35%, Celltrion 1.31% and Hana Financial 1.68%. Defensive consumer names also advanced, with Samyang Foods surging 11.29%, APR rising 8.32% and KT&G climbing 6.26%.

The Kosdaq closed at 831.23, down 15.84 points, or 1.87%, from Monday — 32% below its intraday peak of 1,229.42 reached on April 27.

The index opened down 3.33 points, or 0.39%, at 843.74, briefly turned positive early in the session, then reversed course and fell as low as 812.70. The close marked a new low for the year on both a closing and intraday basis.

On the Kosdaq, retail investors and institutions were both net sellers, offloading 361.3 billion won and 24.2 billion won, respectively. Foreign investors were net buyers at 387.2 billion won.

Among Kosdaq-listed stocks, Ecopro BM fell 1.23%, Ecopro 1.29%, Rainbow Robotics 4.27%, Jusung Engineering 3.36% and Wonik IPS 9.48%. On the upside, Alteogen gained 1.96%, Kolon TissueGene 6.91%, HLB 6.05%, ABL Bio 4.10% and LigaChem Biosciences 6.57%.

The won edged stronger against the dollar but remained elevated above the 1,500-won level. In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won was quoted at 1,528.2 won per dollar as of 3:30 p.m., up 2.1 won from the previous session.


th5@heraldcorp.com