South Korea stocks fall 4% as tech heavyweights follow plunge in Wall Street's AI-linked names

Key points

• A pedestrian walks past an electronic quotation board displaying the Nikkei 225 stock prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on March 23, 2026. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.46%, while the CSI 300 declined 0.29%.
• The Kospi was last down 4.11%, with heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropping 6% and 8%, respectively.
• The small-cap Kosdaq index fell 2.41%.
• South Korea stocks plunged Friday, leading losses in the region, as the slump in Wall Street tech names overnight spread into Asia, dragging benchmark indexes lower.
• Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to a fresh all-time high, while the Nasdaq Composite underperformed as investors appeared to rotate out of chip names in favor of non-tech stocks.