KOSPI · October 24, 2008
The KOSPI in the financial crisis
-54.54%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
242 trading days · 2007-10-31 → 2008-10-24
back to the old high on 2011-01-03
What happened that day?
- From the October 2007 peak to the October 2008 low the KOSPI fell 54.54% — 242 trading days
- The crisis started in US housing, but Korea shook harder than the source did
- In a crisis money moves to currencies people consider safe, and on the way out the won fell sharply
- A falling won shrinks the dollar value of Korean shares for foreign holders — one more reason to sell
- The memory of the 1997 crisis was still fresh, which made the fear bite deeper
- A currency swap line with the US Fed and coordinated action abroad settled it. The old high came back on 3 January 2011
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.