South Korea’s stock exchange operator has activated a buy-side circuit breaker on the KOSPI index, halting trading as the benchmark rallied sharply from recent lows.
The measure was triggered after the index surged 4.1% in the first 30 minutes of Wednesday’s session, recovering the majority of a nearly 10% decline recorded the previous day.
The buy-side intervention marks a rare escalation in market stability measures, coming just one day after the exchange activated a sell-side circuit breaker.
Tuesday’s pause followed a steep decline driven by heavy selling in technology shares, which had pushed the benchmark to multi-month lows.
The rapid reversal in sentiment has forced regulators to deploy both sides of the trading halt mechanism within a 24-hour period.
The volatility underscores the fragility of investor confidence in Korean equities amid broader regional uncertainty.