![[Seoul=NEWSIS] Reporter Park Young-tae = On the afternoon of the 18th, a dealer worked at the Hana Bank headquarters dealing room in Jung-gu, Seoul. The KOSPI closed down 108.11 points (1.55%) at 6,869.83. The KOSDAQ closed down 30.45 points (3.52%) at 834.20, and the won-dollar exchange rate closed down 1.2 won at 1,411.8 won. 2026.08.18. since1999@newsis.com /Photo=Park Young-tae](https://thumb.mt.co.kr/cdn-cgi/image/f=avif/21/2026/08/2026081909151212151_1.jpg)
On the 19th, with the program sell orders temporarily suspended (sell-side sidecar (futures market circuit breaker)) activated in the KOSPI market, the KOSPI index fell more than 6%, dropping below 6,500.
At 9:09 a.m., the KOSPI index traded at 6,474.70, down 395.13 points (5.75%) from the previous day. The intraday high was 6,528.77 (-4.96%), and the low was 6,438.89 (-6.27%), showing a downward trend of at least around 5%.
Foreign investors and institutional investors were net selling in amounts of 563.5 billion won and 21.4 billion won, respectively, while retail investors were net buying 577.7 billion won.
The Korea Exchange activated the sell-side sidecar (futures market circuit breaker) in the KOSPI market at 9:06 a.m. The KOSPI sell-side sidecar (futures market circuit breaker) is a market stabilization mechanism that suspends program sell orders for five minutes when the KOSPI 200 futures price falls by 5% or more compared to the previous trading day and remains so for one minute. This marks the 48th time this year that a sidecar (futures market circuit breaker) has been activated in the KOSPI market, and the 25th time it has been triggered in the sell direction.
Samsung Electronics is trading down 6.98% at 249,750 won. SK Hynix is down 8.42% at 1,522,000 won.
△SK Square (-11.01%) △Samsung Electronics Preferred (-6.85%) △Hyundai Motor (-5.52%) △KB Financial Group (-3.26%) △Samsung Electro-Mechanics (-2.92%) △LG Energy Solution (-1.99%) △Samsung Biologics (-1.70%) are among the stocks falling.
The KOSDAQ index traded down 22.24 points (2.67%) at 811.96. Retail investors and institutional investors were net selling 38.2 billion won and 16.7 billion won, respectively, while foreign investors were net buying 57.1 billion won.
△Jusung Engineering (-5.58%) △Wonik IPS (-4.63%) △HLB (-4.29%) △Rino Industrial (-4.28%) △EcoPro BM (-3.48%) △EcoPro (-3.44%) △RAINBOW Robotics (-3.19%) △ABL Bio (-1.38%) ↑IO Techneics (-1.21%) △Altogen Labs (-1.17%) are among the stocks falling.
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