Sell-side sidecar followed by circuit breaker... Trading suspended for 20 minutes before resumption

Samsung Electronics plunges 9%... SK Hynix crashes 13%, dropping to the high 1.8 million won range

KOSPI plunges (Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Jin-wook = Employees work at the dealing room of Hana Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 13th. On this day, the KOSPI plunged more than 6% during intraday trading, falling below the 7,000 mark for the first time in about two months. As of 12:12 PM, the KOSPI was at 6,978.89, down 497.05 points (6.65%) from the previous trading session. 2026.7.13 cityboy@yna.co.kr Following an 8% plunge that saw the KOSPI fall below the 7,000-point mark on the 13th, a circuit breaker was triggered, temporarily halting all trading.

As of 1:51 PM, the KOSPI stood at 6,880.97, down 594.97 points (7.96%). The index opened at 7,412.03, down 63.91 points (0.85%), fluctuated, and then shifted to a downward trend, further expanding its losses.

This is the first time the KOSPI index has fallen below the 7,000 mark since it first broke through on May 6, about two months ago.

The KOSPI fell as much as 8.22% to 6,861.40 at one point today, leading to the activation of a circuit breaker at 1:28 PM, which suspended trading for 20 minutes—the 7th time this year and the 13th time in history. More than half of these occurrences have taken place this year.

The Korea Exchange subsequently announced that the circuit breaker for the KOSPI market would be lifted and trading would resume at 1:48:32 PM, 20 minutes after the suspension.

Earlier, at 10:34 AM, a sell-side sidecar had also been triggered for the KOSPI.

Currently, the net selling by foreign investors in the KOSPI has grown to 2.2483 trillion won, while institutions are also selling off 572.7 billion won worth of shares. Individual investors are recording a net purchase of 2.7231 trillion won.

The sharp decline of the two semiconductor leaders appears to be having a significant impact on the index's downturn.

Currently, Samsung Electronics [005930] has plunged 9.21% to fall to the 250,000 won range, and SK Hynix [000660] has also crashed 13.35%, sliding into the high 1.8 million won range after breaking through the 2 million won threshold.

At the same time, the KOSDAQ index was also down 36 points (4.30%) to 801.43, facing a threat to the 800-point level. [Yonhap News]