KOSPI · June 28, 2002

Taken back in two days (Seoul)

+4.55%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Eleven months when the card bills came due

early in it · 2002-04-18 → 2003-03-17, -45.05% over the whole period

What happened that day?

28 June 2002 — the KOSPI rose 4.55% to close at 742.72. No single cause can be pinned to the day
Two sessions earlier the KOSPI had collapsed in a single day, triggered by news of accounting fraud at a large American telecom
Korea reacted especially hard because of foreign ownership: when the world cuts risk, emerging-market shares are sold first
Over two sessions it took much of that fall back. Large swings were ordinary in this period
But Korea's worry was domestic rather than foreign — arrears on household credit-card borrowing were rising
From the 18 April high to the 10 October low the index fell 37.71%
The recovery came after the following spring. The card problem took time to clear

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.