South Korean stocks opened sharply lower on June 11, tracking an overnight tech slump on Wall Street and escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) started 2.86 percent lower and then plunged 288.94 points, or 3.74 percent, to 7,441.88 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.87 percent lower, the S&P 500 fell 1.62 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite shed 1.98 percent. AI chip giant Nvidia dipped 3.73 percent, Broadcom slid 5.12 percent, AMD dropped 4.86 percent, and Super Micro Computer tumbled 28 percent. In Seoul, market top-cap Samsung Electronics shed 3.47 percent, while SK hynix fell 2.54 percent. SK Square plummeted 7.86 percent and Hyundai Motor slipped 5.81 percent. The Korean won was trading at 1,524.8 won against the U.S. dollar at 9:15 a.m., down 0.6 won from the previous session.
