Seoul halts trading as Asia's tech rout deepens, with the Kospi down more than 7%
The Nikkei fell close to 5% as chipmakers and SoftBank sank.
Asia Markets · Thursday, October 15, 2026 · 6:15 AM ET
Asian stocks plunged Thursday as the technology selloff spread from Wall Street, with Seoul and Tokyo hit hardest. South Korea's Kospi fell more than 7% and Japan's Nikkei 225 shed close to 5% (WSJ, CNA).
Seoul halts trading
The Kospi briefly dived more than 8%, which triggered a trading halt, before paring losses (CNA). Investing.com put the intraday drop at nearly 9% and said it was the index's 10th circuit breaker this year. SK Hynix sank more than 11% and Samsung Electronics more than 9% at one point (CNA). Seoul Economic Daily reported that South Korea's Financial Services Commission held an emergency meeting in the afternoon. Officials blamed expectations of higher global interest rates, doubts about AI chip earnings and higher oil prices, and said the market's decline looked excessive.
Tokyo and the rest of the region
CNA reported Kioxia down more than 12%, Advantest down 15% and SoftBank down 9.3%. Taipei lost more than 3%, and Hong Kong and Shanghai also fell (CNA, Investing.com). Investing.com said the MSCI Asia Pacific index fell nearly 3%.
Why
CNA tied the selling to the hotter US inflation report and to worries about the AI investment boom, while CNBC and Investing.com also pointed to concerns about Chinese memory-chip competition. See our CPI story, the CoreWeave story and last night's Dusk Ledger.