KOSPI Plunges Nearly 8% as ₹18 Lakh Crore Wiped Out in Brutal AI Selloff
A devastating wave of selling hammered Asian financial markets on Thursday, October 15, 2026, as South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index suffered an intraday crash of up to 7.8%, wiping out approximately 305 trillion won ($203 billion or ₹18.3 lakh crore) in investor wealth in a single trading session. Triggered by heavy institutional offloading by foreign investors, the severe volatility forced market operators to temporarily halt automated program trading to prevent an uncontrolled collapse as the index dropped toward the 5,673.01 mark. The market turmoil was set off by a convergence of macroeconomic and sector-specific headwinds, primarily driven by hotter-than-expected US inflation data, mounting fears of renewed Federal Reserve monetary tightening, and growing institutional skepticism surrounding the real commercial returns on monumental artificial intelligence investments.
Semiconductor Heavyweights Crushed: Samsung and SK Hynix Lead ₹18 Lakh Crore Rout
The damage on the Seoul exchange was heavily concentrated in the country's flagship memory chipmakers, which had previously served as prime engines of the AI-driven market rally. Technology titan Samsung Electronics saw its shares slide more than 7% in early trades before extending losses to 8.2%, while leading high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supplier SK Hynix dropped between 8% and 10.8% under relentless institutional dumping. Investors are increasingly questioning whether the astronomical capital spending poured into AI clusters and specialized data center infrastructure will translate into proportional corporate earnings in the near term. This skepticism was intensified by a sharp drop in the shares of US AI cloud specialist CoreWeave and a subsequent spike in its bond yields toward 15%, alongside escalating technological competition from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), whose expanding production capacity threatens to increase memory chip supply and compress South Korean operating margins.
US Inflation Shock and Asian Contagion: Nikkei Drops 4% on Higher-for-Longer Rates
Adding to tech sector valuation strains, the latest US Consumer Price Index showed annual inflation quickening to 3.7% in September against expectations of 3.6%, reviving expectations that the Federal Reserve could keep interest rates elevated or execute additional rate hikes. Higher interest rates increase corporate borrowing expenses and reduce the present valuation of fast-growing technology enterprises that rely on projected long-term cash flows. The panic originating in Seoul spread quickly across regional bourses, dragging Japan’s Nikkei 225 down by more than 4% as Tokyo-listed chip equipment and electronics suppliers tracked the global retreat. With technology hardware valuations undergoing severe stress tests and concerns mounting over leveraged infrastructure expansion, the massive selloff marks one of the steepest single-day adjustments in Asian equity markets in recent history.
