KOSPI · March 17, 2003
Eleven months when the card bills came due
-45.05%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
224 trading days · 2002-04-18 → 2003-03-17
still below that peak today
What happened that day?
- From the high on 18 April 2002 to the low on 17 March 2003, the KOSPI fell 45.05% over 224 trading days
- The doubling of the previous seven months was roughly half given back here
- The other side of the policy of issuing cards freely to revive spending showed up in this period. Cards had been handed out without checking ability to repay
- As arrears surged, card companies could not raise funds, and one of them was eventually taken over
- In the same period accounting frauds were emerging in the US and world markets fell together
- By March 2003 war in Iraq was imminent, adding uncertainty
- 17 March was the bottom, and the advance that began there ran for more than two years
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.