South Korean markets were rocked by a sharp selloff on Friday, with the benchmark Kospi index surrendering all its early gains and plunging more than 6% from intraday highs after briefly crossing the historic 8,000 mark for the first time. Up until Thursday, the index was up a staggering 90% in 2026 alone.
The sudden reversal was driven largely by heavy selling in technology stocks and came amid broad weakness across Asia-Pacific markets. The Kospi was down as much as 7.6% at one point, its biggest intra-day drop since March 9. Foreign investors sold 5.6 trillion won ($3.7 billion) worth of the Kospi shares on a net basis, taking this week’s withdrawal to 14.3 trillion won.
