The KOSPI plunged more than 6% in intraday trading on the 13th, breaking below the 6,000 level, as concerns over expanding memory chip supply spread following a Chinese chipmaker's plan to mass-produce next-generation DRAM, with heavy foreign selling dragging the index lower.
The benchmark index was trading at 5,996.16 as of 10:40 a.m., down 388.08 points, or 6.08%, from the previous session, according to the Korea Exchange. The KOSPI opened 3.10% lower at 6,186.08 and extended losses, breaching the 6,100 level before falling through 6,000.
Foreign investors led the selling. They net sold 1.81 trillion won worth of shares on the main board during the session. Retail and institutional investors absorbed the supply, net buying 1.05 trillion won and 598.7 billion won, respectively. Program trading showed net selling of 1.02 trillion won.
Top market-cap stocks fell across the board. Samsung Electronics was trading at 233,500 won, down 6.79% from the previous session, while SK hynix tumbled 8.54% to 1.468 million won. Losses widened among other chip-related stocks, including SK Square, down 11.94%, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics, down 8.68%.
The selloff is attributed to weakening investor sentiment after China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) said it would unveil next-generation server DRAM products within the year, raising concerns about intensifying competition in the global memory market.
Earlier, at 9:47:58 a.m., a sell-side sidecar was triggered on the main board after KOSPI 200 futures fell 5.08% from the previous session. It marked the first sell-side sidecar on the KOSPI market in about two months, since Aug. 19.
The KOSDAQ also declined. At the same time, the tech-heavy index was trading at 811.49, down 37.70 points, or 4.44%, from the previous session.