KOSPI · March 31, 2026

A war that erased a fifth in a month

-19.89%

peak-to-trough, the whole slide

22 trading days · 2026-02-26 → 2026-03-31

back to the old high on 2026-04-21

What happened that day?

From the peak on 26 February 2026 to the low on 31 March, the KOSPI lost 19.89% over 22 trading days
It began in late February when the United States and Israel struck Iran on a large scale, and Iran's retaliation spread across the Gulf
What mattered was that **traffic through the Strait of Hormuz seized up.** A quarter of the world's seaborne crude runs through it, so a blockage moves the oil price immediately
On 4 March alone came the worst single day since the index began, with circuit breakers halting both the KOSPI and the KOSDAQ
On 9 March crude jumped more than a quarter in a day and the circuit breakers fired again
What the stretch exposed was how **exposed Korea's market is to shocks from outside.** It imports all its oil, lives on exports, and carries a large share of foreign money
The last session of March closed at 5,052.46, more than a fifth below where February had ended
And all of it was given back within four weeks — that is the next stretch's story

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.