KOSPI Reels from Coronavirus
25 February, 2020
Stock markets all over the world were reeling Monday from coronavirus jitters and Korea was hit particularly hard. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed down 3.87 percent on Monday at 2,079.04 points, the largest drop since Oct. 11, 2018.
The KOSPI lost a lot more than W66 trillion in market capitalization (US$1=W1,218).
Oddly, the Shanghai currency markets, which is fairly near the epicenter of the epidemic, closed down only 0.28 percent, while markets in Taiwan, Singapore and other parts of Asia fell around one percent.
The Korean won also closed down W11 at W1,220.2, the weakest since August last year.
Korea also saw a bigger decline in stock prices than Japan, which has been equally affected by the virus. The KOSPI has declined 7.6 percent since the first confirmed case was reported here on Jan. 20, while the Nikkei fell only 2.7 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index just 1.4 percent.
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