KOSPI · April 23, 2004
Thirteen months as China started buying
+81.67%
trough back to the old high
270 trading days · 2003-03-17 → 2004-04-23
What happened that day?
- From the low on 17 March 2003 to the high on 23 April 2004, the KOSPI rose 81.67% over 270 trading days
- This was the period when China, newly in the World Trade Organization, was expanding industrial capacity on a vast scale
- Orders surged at Korean firms making what China needed — steel, chemicals, ships, machinery
- Korea's largest export destination switched from the US to China around this time. The structure of the next twenty years was set here
- Domestic spending was still poor. With the card losses still working through, domestic demand and exports moved separately
- Low interest rates worldwide helped the advance as well
- It was cut off in April 2004 when China moved to cool its overheating
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.