WhyItDropped

KOSPI · January 4, 2001

A rate cut in the first week of the year

+7.02%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Korea's dot-com hangover

midway through · 2000-01-04 → 2001-09-17, -55.74% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The KOSPI rose 7.02% to close at 558.02
  • The day before, on 3 January, the US Federal Reserve cut rates on a day that was not a scheduled meeting
  • Korea reacted the next session — American announcements land after the Seoul close
  • The timing mattered more than the size. Not waiting for the meeting meant the economy looked that bad, and also that someone intended to act
  • The KOSPI was in the middle of the technology bust at the time, more than half off its high of the previous spring
  • Cheap prices plus a rate cut make for large rebounds. This was one
  • The episode still had four more months to run

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.