Key points
- Both markets trigger trading halts
- Foreigners sell for an eighth straight day
- Leveraged chip funds hit new lows
South Korea's Kospi fell 7.57% on Thursday, October 15, as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped sharply. It was the index's biggest one-day fall since July 28. The Kospi closed at 5,554.22, its lowest close since April 7.
Trading on both the Kospi and the Kosdaq stopped for 20 minutes in the afternoon after each index fell 8%. It was the first time since July 29 that both markets triggered these halts on the same day. Korean media are calling it "Black Thursday." The Kosdaq closed down 7.65%.
Samsung and SK Hynix led the fall
Samsung Electronics (005930) fell 9.48% to 210,000 won ($156), and SK Hynix (000660) fell 11.06% to 1,262,000 won ($939). The Kospi has now fallen seven trading days in a row, its longest losing streak since September 2024. It's lost 21% over those seven days, by our arithmetic.
Yonhap (연합뉴스) reported that the selling came as doubts returned over whether big spending on AI will pay off. US consumer prices for September also rose 3.7% from a year earlier, above the 3.6% forecast.
Foreigners sold for an eighth straight day
Foreign investors sold a net 3.6 trillion won ($2.7B) of Kospi shares on Thursday. It was their eighth straight day of net selling, after they passed 200 trillion won of selling this year on Tuesday. In October, they've sold a net 17.8 trillion won ($13.3B), with October 1 their only day of net buying.
Most of that selling was in the two chipmakers. Foreigners sold a net 9.3 trillion won ($6.9B) of SK Hynix this month and 4.8 trillion won ($3.6B) of Samsung. SK Hynix is down 28.9% in October, and Samsung is down 21.8%.
Foreigners now own 38.29% of the Kospi's total market value, the lowest share since May 4, according to Korea Exchange data.
"With interest rates high, bonds look more attractive, and we think global money has cut back on emerging-market stocks and moved into bonds," said Lee Kyung-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities (대신증권).
"US Treasury yields have come down recently, but foreigners are still selling, so the pressure on Korean stocks is still there," he added.
Leveraged SK Hynix funds are down 77% since listing
The leveraged funds fell even further. All 14 single-stock leveraged funds tied to Samsung and SK Hynix fell between 19% and 22% on Thursday, Asia Economy (아시아경제) reported.
These funds target twice the stock's daily return. So SK Hynix's 11% fall turned into a drop of about 22% for the KODEX and TIGER SK Hynix leveraged funds. Both are now about 77% below their listing price from five months ago.
Someone who put 10 million won ($7,437) into the TIGER fund at its listing price would now have about 2.24 million won ($1,666). Over longer periods, daily resets and compounding mean their returns can differ sharply from twice the stock's overall move. Repeated ups and downs can deepen losses.
The KODEX and TIGER Samsung leveraged funds fell 19% to 20%. They're down about 65% since they listed on May 27, and both closed below their July 30 closing lows.
Individual investors kept buying anyway. On Thursday, they bought a net 42.2 billion won ($31.4M) of the KODEX SK Hynix fund and 24.8 billion won ($18.4M) of the KODEX Samsung fund. Foreigners sold both.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix reports its third-quarter results later this month.
The analyst comment is translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,344.6 won to the dollar, the Seoul market rate at 3:30 p.m. on October 15, 2026.
