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Sidecar activated on Kospi due to sharp rise shortly after opening

Published: 10 Mar. 2026, 09:29 Updated: 10 Mar. 2026, 14:13

LIM JEONG-WON
[email protected]

A screen in Hana Bank's trading room in central Seoul shows the Kospi in the morning hours of March 10. [NEWS1]

Futures trading was temporarily halted on the buy side of the Kospi after the index sharply rose just minutes into trading on Tuesday morning.

The temporary trading curb, known locally as a sidecar, was activated by the Korea Exchange for the Kospi at around 9:06 a.m. Tuesday.

Korean stocks started sharply higher Tuesday, a day after a sharp decline, after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S.-Iran war “is very complete.”

The Kospi rose 271.34 points, or 5.17 percent, to 5,523.21 at the opening bell.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.38 percent, and the S&P 500 increased 0.83 percent. The Kospi fell 5.96 percent Monday.

During an interview with CBS News, Trump said the war with Iran "is very complete," which led to a sharp decline in global crude prices.

In the previous session on Monday, the Korea Exchange activated a circuit breaker on the main bourse, suspending trading for 20 minutes following extreme market volatility.

It marked the first time a circuit breaker had been activated twice in a single month since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the market. The previous one was issued Wednesday last week when the Kospi sank 12.06 percent, the steepest one-day decline since Sept. 12, 2001.

BY LIM JEONG-WON, YONHAP [[email protected]]