KOSPI · March 2, 2009

The day it hit the second bottom

-4.16%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

Four months of testing the bottom twice

near the end of it · 2008-10-24 → 2009-03-02, +8.53% over the whole period

What happened that day?

The KOSPI fell 4.16% on the day — the second and final bottom of the financial crisis phase
24 October 2008 had been the first bottom; after four months of violent swings the low was set again here
The worry at this point was eastern Europe, as loans made there by western European banks looked likely to sour
Korea does not trade heavily with eastern Europe, but money fleeing risk leaves all emerging markets at once, and that was the problem
The won weakened again in this period, reaching its worst level of the crisis in early March
Recovery began from here and carried the index sharply higher into September

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.