Seoul bourse tumbles at fall of U.S. stock market

The fall of the techno-stocks in the U.S stock market relayed on to Korea Stock Exchange and the KOSDAQ market. Especially the KOSDAQ market reached its lowest index points in 17 months and barely maintained the 100 level.

Monetary Policy Committee, on the other hand, resolved to maintain the call rate at the current level of 5%, as lowering it would further negatively influence the macroeconomic indexes on top of the prolonging financial insecurities, and the sharp rise of the internal oil price.

The KOSDAQ composite index on September 7 tumbled at the sharp fall of the semiconductor shares in the U.S stock market and ended at 5.43 points (5.04%) below the previous day of 101.99. This is the lowest since April 16 of last year. Shares of 517 companies dropped in value, the highest in the year, which are about 10 times the shares of the companies (50) that rose in value.

The composite index of the Korea Stock exchange also dropped by 20.32 points (3.00%) from the previous day to end at 656.37 at the sell orders from the foreign investors and sell orders for programs. This is the first time since May 29 of last year the index retreated to the 650 level. Shares of 609 dropped in value with 32 companies reaching their lowest daily limit while shares of 233 companies rose in value with 56 companies reaching their highest daily limit.

Park Hyeon-Jin witness@donga.com