South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index sinks more than 7% as tech sell-off deepens

South Korea Financial Markets A TV camera man works in front of a screen showing stock prices at the Korea Exchange in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) (Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

By Associated Press

HONG KONG — South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index sank more than 7% on Thursday as a sell-off of technology shares deepened after U.S. stocks fell on hotter-than-expected inflation data.

The Kospi index lost 7.1% in early trading to 5,584.83. Samsung Electronics slid 8.2% and South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix plunged 10.8%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 3.9% to 65,119.51. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group tumbled 9.1% while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped 6.3%.

The declines in Asian shares followed losses on Wall Street on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dropped 1.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite slipped 1.9% as artificial intelligence-related stocks fell.

Nvidia lost 3.2%, Broadcom gave up 3.1%, and Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, declined 5.7%.

The U.S. reported Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 3.7% year-on-year in September, up from 3.4% in August and worse than what economists had expected.