KOSPI · July 20, 1998
The rate-cut turn
+10.54%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Korea's post-IMF rebound
early in it · 1998-06-16 → 1999-04-27, +183.56% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- On 20 July 1998 the KOSPI rose 10.54% in a single day
- A month earlier, on 16 June, the currency-crisis decline had bottomed
- The turn came as the high rates imposed under the bailout began to come down
- High rates had been defending the won at the cost of killing companies. Once the won steadied, that condition could be relaxed
- Lower rates cut interest costs for indebted firms and reduced the risk of failure
- Foreign money started coming back too. This run carried through to the old high in April 1999
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.