WhyItDropped

KOSPI · March 5, 1998

The Winter of the Crisis

-6.47%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Korea's IMF crisis

near the end of it · 1997-06-17 → 1998-06-16, -64.66% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • 5 March 1998 — KOSPI fell 6.47%, three months after the IMF agreement
  • The bailout stopped the foreign currency shortage but didn't resolve bad debt at companies and banks
  • The high rates attached as conditions were making it worse
  • A steady flow of new bad news: another company defaulted, another bank slated for resolution
  • No basis for judging where the bottom was
  • Fell 51.25% from peak. The market wouldn't turn until after that summer

Sources

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.