WhyItDropped

KOSPI · May 10, 2004

China taps the brakes

-5.73%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Three months as China hit the brakes

early in it · 2004-04-23 → 2004-08-02, -23.13% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • On 10 May 2004 the KOSPI fell 5.73% in a single day
  • Korean exports leaned heavily on the China boom — steel, chemicals and shipbuilding were thriving on Chinese construction demand
  • Beijing began tightening lending and investment to cool an overheating economy
  • Less Chinese demand hits those Korean sectors immediately, which is why the reaction was large
  • Expectations of US rate rises at the same time pulled money out of emerging markets
  • China's tightening did not last long, and the boom ran for several more 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.