The Kospi opened higher Wednesday but quickly reversed course, with losses deepening rapidly enough to trigger a circuit breaker during the session.

The halt marked the second consecutive trading day the Kospi triggered a circuit breaker — following Tuesday — a first in the index's history. The Kosdaq had also triggered circuit breakers on both days.

According to Korea Exchange, the Kospi stood at 5,655.71 as of 11:39 a.m. Wednesday, down 367.95 points, or 6.11 percent, from Tuesday. The index had broken below the 6,000 level during the session, with losses continuing to widen.

The index opened up 65.45 points, or 1.09 percent, at 6,089.11, briefly recovering as high as 6,228.52 — a gain of 3.40 percent — in early trading before surrendering those gains and turning negative.

A sell sidecar was triggered on the Kospi market at 10:55:07 a.m., followed by one on the Kosdaq market at 10:56:07 a.m. Both markets had also activated sell sidecars on Tuesday, making Wednesday the second straight day of such interventions across both exchanges.

Retail investors, who had been net buyers for three consecutive trading sessions through Tuesday, switched to net selling Wednesday. They posted net selling of 1.77 trillion won ($1.21 billion) on the Kospi market, while foreign investors posted net selling of 140.7 billion won. Institutions were net buyers of 1.85 trillion won.

After Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix tumbled 13 to 14 percent on the domestic market Tuesday, weakness in the semiconductor sector carried over to Wall Street overnight. The technology-heavy NASDAQ Composite closed down 0.22 percent from the previous session.

Semiconductor-related stocks fell sharply, with Micron dropping 8.85 percent, AMD falling 8.15 percent, Intel declining 5.86 percent, Qualcomm sliding 4.21 percent and Western Digital losing 6.91 percent.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 4.49 percent, extending its losing streak to four consecutive sessions. SK Hynix's American depositary receipt fell 8.98 percent, continuing a three-day slide that has left it roughly 13 percent below its IPO price of $149.


dlcw@heraldcorp.com