Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) shares plunged to their daily limit down on orders worth approximately 500 million won ($340 million) immediately after the pre-market opened, throwing investors into chaos and raising concerns about volatility in the relatively illiquid pre-market trading session. Amid a selloff in U.S. tech stocks and plunging commodity prices, the KOSPI experienced wild swings, with the gap between the day's high (5,120.77) and low (4,899.30) reaching 221.47 points.
According to the financial investment industry on January 6, shares of Samsung Electronics, Hanwha Ocean (042660.KS), Hanwha Aerospace (012450.KS), Doosan Enerbility (034020.KS), and Kia (000270.KS) simultaneously hit their lower price limits as soon as the Nextrade market opened, triggering volatility interruption (VI) mechanisms. Samsung Electronics traded at 111,600 won, down 29.94% (47,700 won), with 4,525 shares changing hands around 8:02 a.m. before returning to normal price movements.
This occurred because Nextrade uses a "continuous auction" system where trades are executed immediately when buy and sell orders match, unlike the Korea Exchange (KRX), which uses a "single-price auction" method. This mechanism led to instances last year where limit-up or limit-down prices were triggered by just a single share traded immediately after Nextrade opened. Whether the day's trades resulted from order errors by individuals or institutions has not been confirmed.
Risk assets including equities and Bitcoin swung sharply like a roller coaster after investor sentiment froze overnight on Wall Street due to concerns over artificial intelligence profitability at big tech companies such as Microsoft.
The KOSPI closed at 5,089.14, down 74.43 points (-1.44%) from the previous trading day. After briefly falling below the 4,900 level, the index triggered a sidecar—a temporary halt on program sell orders—as KOSPI futures plunged more than 5%. Foreign investors dragged down the market by selling 3.3226 trillion won worth of shares on the KOSPI alone, led by SK hynix (000660.KS), Samsung Electronics, and Hyundai Motor (005380.KS).
In the Seoul foreign exchange market, the won-dollar exchange rate, which rose as high as 1,475.3 won during the session, closed at 1,469.5 won as of 3:30 p.m., up 0.5 won from the previous day. Bitcoin also dropped to 89 million won, its lowest level since October 15, 2024, before sharply rebounding.