South Korea Stock Market Defended After Sharp Volatility and Sell-Off

The South Korea stock market remains supported by solid economic fundamentals despite a sharp recent sell-off, Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said.

Koo cited resilient economic growth, strong exports, manageable inflation and improving consumer and business confidence while pledging additional measures to deepen capital markets and support emerging industries.

His comments followed a Bloomberg Opinion column describing South Korea as increasingly “uninvestable” because of extreme volatility, a nearly 40% Kospi decline over 27 sessions and concerns surrounding leveraged single-stock exchange-traded funds.

The Financial Services Commission also disputed parts of the column, saying some figures were inconsistent with official data.

The Kospi was trading near 6,300 on Thursday after recovering from below 5,600 on 30 July. The index had previously reached a record 9,114.55 on 22 June, illustrating the scale of recent market volatility.