Nasdaq plunged….. Shaking Stock Market

By the influence of the plunged U.S. Nasdaq under 2000, the stock markets in Asia and Central America are correspondingly weakening. The Won currency ratio to dollar hiked up to 1309, accelerating the instability of the domestic financial market.

Yesterday, the consecutive decrease of the Korean Composite Stock Price Index (KCSPI) for five days ended up with 553.65, 4.95 down from yesterday. The index once went down under 550.

Kosdaq index closed at 68.07, which is 2.60 decreased from yesterday and under 70 for the first time in the past three months. The plunge of the domestic stock market is caused by the concurrent adverse conditions such as the plunge of Nasdaq index, the hike of the won-dollar exchange ratio, and the pending deadline of the index option.

The plummeting of the stock market, except for the transportation, communication, and insurance, overwhelmed the stock exchange market. The stock price of the Samsung Electronics fell under 170 thousands won and other blue-chip stocks maintained bearish.

In advance, the New York Nasdaq index was closed at 1962.79, which is down 3.15 percent and under 2000 for the first time in the past three weeks.

Dow index also was also down 1.20 percent and closed at 10,175.57.

In the New York stock market, such large technology stocks as of Oracle (7 percent), Sun MicroSystem (5.1 percent), Qualcomm (4.3 percent), Intel (3.8 percent), all plunged.

Experts are anticipating a slight chance of a quick recovery of the New York stock market, considering that the U.S. economy has not shown a positive sign even after the 6 times reduction of the interest rate. The U.S. business performance of the second quarter, which will be released from this week, is not expected to recover.

The won exchange ratio to dollar rose 9.8 won yesterday and closed at 1308.8 won.

Lee Jin leej@donga.com