STOCKS | South Korea Eases Margin Rules After KOSPI Triggers Circuit Breaker

South Korea announced three months of margin-rule relief after the KOSPI plunged 8% at the open on November 6, triggering a 20-minute trading halt—its 11th circuit breaker activation this year. According to Sina Finance, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Lee Hyeong-il convened an emergency market review meeting, where officials agreed to waive securities firms’ obligation to maintain the 140% collateral ratio for credit-financed securities positions for three months starting Monday, November 9, to prevent forced liquidations from amplifying volatility. After the announcement, the KOSPI’s intraday loss narrowed to about 3.5%. It closed at 5,059.69, down 6.02%. SK Hynix, one of South Korea’s two leading memory-chip makers, fell more than 13% intraday, briefly narrowing its loss to about 4%, and closed down more than 10%. South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance said global stock market volatility had increased after the U.S. midterm elections. It attributed the recent decline in South Korean shares to several factors, including policy uncertainty surrounding the AI industry, concerns about regulation of AI data centers, and weaker global investor sentiment, and said the market had overreacted to external factors. Regulators said South Korea’s economic fundamentals remained sound, and that they would monitor excessive investor anxiety and concentrated supply and demand; they were prepared to take additional market-stabilization measures if volatility increased further. On the afternoon of November 6, the ministry also met with semiconductor experts to discuss industry trends and future demand. Participants said the industry’s medium- and long-term growth outlook remained intact, citing major AI companies’ investment progress and plans and greater semiconductor demand from the adoption of agentic AI. They said no clear signs of a contraction in AI investment or semiconductor demand had been observed.