South Korea halts KOSPI trading after index plunges 8% on AI spending fears

South Korea's stock exchange suspended KOSPI trading Friday after the index plunged over 8% within minutes of the opening bell, triggering an automatic 20-minute circuit breaker amid fears over future artificial intelligence spending. The KOSPI fell to 4,924.61 at 9:03 am in Seoul, extending a 5.28% decline from Thursday. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix briefly suffered double-digit losses, while foreign investors sold nearly 1 trillion won. The index later recovered above 5,000 but remained down 4.45%. The selloff followed a brutal tech rout on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq fell 5.52% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 12.25%. Analysts called the reaction excessive, noting no confirmed collapse in memory demand, though US election results raised uncertainty about data center oversight.