KOSPI · March 4, 2026

The day the KOSPI lost an eighth of itself

-12.06%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

A war that erased a fifth in a month

early in it · 2026-02-26 → 2026-03-31, -19.89% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The KOSPI fell 12.06% on the day — **its worst single day since the index began in 1983**
A circuit breaker halted the KOSDAQ at 11:16 in the morning, and the KOSPI followed minutes later. Stopping trading did not stop the fall
Over the preceding weekend the United States and Israel had struck Iran on a large scale. Iran hit back not only at US vessels and Israel but at Gulf states as well
Korea had no direct stake in the war. The problem was the **Strait of Hormuz** — the channel that carries about a quarter of the world's seaborne crude and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas
Korea imports almost all the oil it burns, much of it through that strait. When crude rises, company costs and consumer prices rise with it, and the currency gives way too
The index closed at 5,093.54. A week earlier it had been above 6,300
The decline ran to the end of March, then reversed in April as talk of a ceasefire emerged

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.