A man holds a South Korean flag outside the National Assembly in Seoul on December 4, 2024, after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared emergency martial law on December 3, saying the move was necessary to protect the country from “communist forces” amid a parliamentary spat over the budget bill.
Anthony Wallace | Afp | Getty Images
South Korea’s heavyweight stocks fell in a volatile trading session on Wednesday amid political upheaval that reversed a surprise martial law ruling imposed hours earlier by President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Minutes before markets opened, Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Kim Byung-hwan said the regulator was ready to allocate 10 trillion won ($7.07 billion) to stabilize the stock market “at any time.” Local media Yonhap reported.
Shares of South Korean chipmaking giant Samsung Electronics fell about 1% while battery-maker LG Energy Solutions and automaker Hyundai Motor suffered wider losses of 2.8% and 2.4% respectively.
Chip major SK Hynix was slightly lower in choppy trading. Shares of internet giant Naver Corp and battery maker Samsung SDI fell more than 2.5%.
Korea Gas Corp led the decline in the Kospi index, falling more than 14%.
The benchmark Kospi fell 2%, while the Kosdaq fell 2.4%. The South Korean won fell a further 0.05% to trade at 1,415.78 against the greenback.
Late on Tuesday night, Yun declared emergency martial law and mobilized the army, Pledge to stop “anti-state forces”. After the National Assembly voted to overturn the president’s ruling, his opponents sought to reverse the decision on Wednesday morning.
The sudden burst of political unrest dealt a fresh blow to the country’s financial markets, sending capital outflows and weakening the currency, Chong Koon Park, head of Korea and Japan economic research at Standard Chartered Bank, told CNBC in an email.
Bank of Korea An extraordinary council meeting was calledAfter publication Financial regulators swore To deploy “unlimited liquidity” to stabilize financial markets.
South Korean stocks suffered Significant fluctuations Overnight in the US. The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, It tracks more than 90 large and mid-sized companies in South Korea, which fell 7% to hit a 52-week low before paring losses to 1.6%.
