The Korea Exchange suspended trading after a sharp sell-off triggered by escalating conflict in the Middle East. Both the Kospi and Kosdaq fell more than 10% during morning trading in Seoul, activating circuit breakers and posting their worst session since August 2024, Channel News Asia reported.
Other Asian markets also declined: Japan’s Nikkei and Topix dropped nearly 4%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell about 3%, and China’s Shanghai Composite slid roughly 1.3%, according to Google Finance. Thailand’s stock exchange plunged about 7.8% on the same day.
“Investors sold down risk assets, and in particular, the Nikkei as well as the Kospi, which outperform other major indexes, have become a target of the heavier selloff as they try to book profits,” Kazuaki Shimada, chief strategist at IwaiCosmo Securities, told Channel News Asia. Jim Bianco, CEO of Bianco Research, noted South Korea imports about 94% of its oil and gets roughly 75% of that from the Middle East, a reliance that helped fuel market panic.
The Trump administration said attacks on Iran are intensifying, and U.S. forces reportedly targeted a meeting of Iran’s top leaders while succession discussions were underway, Fox News reported. The Strait of Hormuz was closed after Iranian threats to oil and cargo vessels. Former President Donald Trump said the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait “as soon as possible” and posted on social media that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply” of weapons and that wars can be “fought forever.”
Oil prices spiked as the conflict intensified: Brent crude rose about 14% to near $82 per barrel and WTI climbed roughly 12% to about $75 per barrel since airstrikes began on Feb. 28, OilPrice reported.
Crypto researcher SungHoon Lee labeled the episode a black swan, saying Korea’s trading halt reflected a crash “too fast for the system to handle.” He estimated roughly $3.2 trillion in global stock market value disappeared over four days and called the shock the worst geopolitical event since the 1973 oil crisis. Crypto markets, down about 21% year-to-date, reacted less sharply that day, with total market capitalization down about 0.5% to $2.39 trillion, CoinGecko reported.
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