KOSPI crashes 6%+ below 6,000 on China memory-chip supply fears, triggering sell sidecar; SK Hynix -8.5%, Samsung -6.8%
What happened
South Korea's KOSPI crashed more than 6% in intraday trading on Tuesday, Oct 13, breaking below the 6,000 level (5,996.16 at 10:40 a.m. KST, -6.08%), after opening 3.1% lower. The selloff triggered a sell sidecar at 9:47:58 a.m. KST — a five-minute suspension of program sell orders after KOSPI 200 futures fell 5.08% — the first on the main board in about two months. Samsung Electronics fell 6.79% to 233,500 won and SK Hynix tumbled 8.54% to 1.468 million won; foreign investors net sold 1.81 trillion won on the main board, with retail and domestic institutions absorbing the flow. The KOSPI is now down 10.1% over five sessions, its fifth straight decline. The catalyst is China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT): over the weekend it announced progress on a denser 4F² DRAM design (TrendForce estimates 30-50% density improvement) and plans to mass-produce next-generation server DRAM within the year, raising fears of expanded global memory supply. US chips sold off overnight ahead of it: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 2.67%, Micron fell 3.9% and Sandisk 6.0%.
Why it matters & what’s next are part of Pro, along with the audio summary.
Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- Semiconductor/memory complex: Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), SK Hynix (000660.KS), SK Square (-11.9%), Samsung Electro-Mechanics (-8.7%)
- US memory names Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK); chip-equipment and AI-infra names (SOX complex) into ASML earnings Wednesday and TSMC Thursday
- Hyundai Motor (-5%), LG Energy Solution (-4.65%) also caught in broad selling