KOSPI · September 8, 2008

The Monday after Washington took over the mortgage giants

+5.15%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The KOSPI in the financial crisis

near the end of it · 2007-10-31 → 2008-10-24, -54.54% over the whole period

What happened that day?

Monday, 8 September 2008 — the KOSPI rose 5.15%
On the Sunday before, Washington announced it would place the two mortgage giants under government control
Banks and central banks around the world held the mortgage paper those two had guaranteed. Nobody knew how far a default would travel
With the government stepping in, that branch of the story was closed off. The announcement came at the weekend; the reaction came in Asia on Monday
Foreign money was leaving Korea and the won was weakening, so this market reacted unusually strongly to relief
The relief did not last a week. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy the following Monday
From the May high to the 24 October low the index fell 50.30%

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 put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.