KOSPI · December 23, 1997
The worst day of the currency crisis
-7.50%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Korea's IMF crisis
midway through · 1997-06-17 → 1998-06-16, -64.66% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 23 December 1997 the KOSPI fell 7.5% in a single day
- Korea had agreed an IMF bailout in early December, but nothing had got better
- An agreement does not bring dollars in. Until the money was actually disbursed, reserves kept draining
- The won fell further by the day, and companies' dollar debts ballooned in won terms
- Foreign investors sold Korean shares even at a currency loss
- Days later an accelerated international support package was confirmed and the market bounced hard. The real low, though, was half a year away in June 1998
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.