South Korea Stocks Trigger Circuit Breaker Again, Nikkei 225 Loses 70,000, OpenAI’s Planned Listing Delay Slams SoftBank Down Over 12%

TradingKey - Japanese and South Korean stock markets hit a 'Black Friday' as the KOSPI Index and the Nikkei 225 plummeted to wipe out yesterday's gains, with SoftBank, Kioxia, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix plunging in unison.

During the Asian trading session on June 26, the Japanese and South Korean stock markets experienced a dramatic turnaround, suffering a tsunami-like collapse. The KOSPI Index continued to slide after the opening bell, dropping more than 8% intraday to trigger a market circuit breaker that halted trading for 20 minutes. This marks the fifth time this year that the KOSPI Index has triggered a market-wide circuit breaker; although the decline narrowed to 5.81% at the close, it still marked its largest single-day drop in recent times.

KOSPI Index Chart, Source: TradingView

The Nikkei 225 Index staged a 'roller coaster' ride today, completely wiping out yesterday's gains. The Nikkei 225 plunged 4.15% at the close, tumbling over 3,000 points to surrender the 70,000 mark and close at 69,360.83. Yesterday, the Nikkei 225 had surged 4.61% to close above 72,000.

Regarding individual stocks, weighed down by OpenAI's delayed listing, SoftBank's share price plummeted over 13% intraday, temporarily nearing the 6,000 yen threshold, before closing down 12.53% at 6,226 yen. Kioxia slumped 11.24%, narrowly holding the 90,000 yen mark intraday to close at 92,200 yen.

SoftBank Price Chart, Source: TradingView

Supported by potential positive catalysts, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics saw slightly smaller declines. SK Hynix fell 8.95% to close at 2,656,000 won, and Samsung Electronics slid 6.28% to close at 336,000 won. Reportedly, the two South Korean memory giants will attend a government event next week to announce large-scale chip investment plans, with rumors suggesting that Samsung Group will unveil a chip plant construction plan exceeding 1,000 trillion won.

While today's plunge in Japanese and South Korean stock markets was ostensibly a correction tracking US markets, it was in fact driven by two 'black swans'—'Apple clashing with Micron over memory price hikes' and 'the renewed shipping lane crisis in the Middle East.' Their combined impact shattered the market's optimistic expectations from yesterday. Furthermore, ahead of the sensitive quarter-end weekend, foreign capital and leveraged funds fled in a panic, further exacerbating this historic rout in the Japanese and South Korean stock markets.