KOSPI at 8,000 Then Crashes 6.12%: 35 Trillion Won Selloff
On Friday May 15, the KOSPI index did something it had never done before. It crossed 8,000. The intraday high was 8,046.78 — a number that four months earlier would have sounded delusional. The index opened 2026 at 4,309.63. That is an 86.7% surge in roughly 70 trading sessions, a pace of gains concentrated almost entirely in semiconductor and AI-adjacent names. The party lasted until approximately lunchtime. By the 3:30 PM close, the KOSPI had reversed 6.12% to 7,493.18. The single-day point loss was the largest in 15 months. Market participants in Seoul started calling it "Black Friday" before the weekend had even begun. Two trading days later — after a weekend that did nothing to calm nerves — the KOSPI opened on Monday May 18 and immediately dropped another 4.67%, touching 7,142.71 intraday. That marked the second consecutive session where a circuit breaker was triggered. From the May 15 peak of 8,046.78 to the May 18 trough of 7,142.71, the index traveled 904.07 poin...