High levels of local retail leverage further exacerbated the drop.
Many individual investors had borrowed heavily to bet on further gains, and the sudden decline forced margin calls and forced selling.
This dynamic effectively transformed the national index into a leveraged proxy for the global memory chip sector. As memory stocks fell, the KOSPI fell even more sharply.
The circuit breaker triggered during the session was the eighth such halt this year, underscoring the extreme volatility in Korean equities.
Trading was temporarily suspended to allow markets to stabilize.
Investors are now watching for any signs of stabilization in memory chip prices or changes in hyperscaler spending plans.
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Until then, the KOSPI remains highly exposed to further downside.
