Kospi Crash Today (Oct 13, 2026): Chip Rout Drags Seoul Down 6% Before Nifty Open

The Kospi crash today is the loudest warning Asia is sending before Indian markets open on Tuesday, October 13, 2026. South Korea’s benchmark was down 386.25 points, or 6.05%, at 5,997.99 by 11:20 a.m. Seoul time, with chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix leading the fall, Yonhap reported via The Korea Times. Here, traders have to set that tech-driven selloff against a GIFT Nifty that’s pointing flat to slightly higher.

Seoul clawed back only some of the damage by the close. The Kospi finished at 6,035.35, down 348.89 points or 5.46%, having been off more than 7% at its worst, according to Korea Exchange data cited by Chosun Biz and The Korea Times. Samsung Electronics ended 7.39% lower; SK hynix lost 10.09%.

How the Kospi crash today played out

The index opened 3.1% down and didn’t stop there. At 9:48 a.m. Seoul time the Korea Exchange triggered a sell-side “sidecar” and halted program trading for five minutes, according to Yonhap. That brake is applied when Kospi 200 futures drop 5% or more and stay there for at least one minute.

• Samsung Electronics: off 7.29% by 11:20 a.m. Seoul time.
• SK hynix: off 8.35% by the same point.
• Foreign investors: sold a net 2.3 trillion won (about $1.7 billion) of Korean shares, while local institutions and retail investors bought.

Yonhap pinned the slide on fears of stiffer competition from China, stretched artificial intelligence valuations, and nerves ahead of major company earnings and US consumer price data due on Wednesday, US time.

Tokyo and New York added to the mood

Seoul wasn’t the only market under pressure. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped as much as 2.14% to 67,550.47 in early deals, with SoftBank Group down 6.79% and Kioxia down 9.71%, Livemint reported. In the US overnight, the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.44% even as the Dow Jones gained 0.38%. That split tells you the selling was aimed at tech shares, not the market as a whole.

India’s position going into the open

We come into Tuesday off a weak Monday. The Sensex lost 547.65 points, or 0.76%, to end at 71,924.68, and the Nifty 50 fell 157.10 points, or 0.70%, to 22,363.35, Livemint reported. Early on Tuesday, GIFT Nifty was quoting near 22,423, almost 41 points over the previous close of Nifty futures, which hints at a mildly positive start.

The rest of the cues pull in different directions. Brent crude futures were down 0.52% at $106.10 a barrel, while India’s retail inflation climbed to 5.54% in September from 4.83% in August, NDTV Profit reported. On the Nifty, Rupak De of LKP Securities told Livemint that immediate support is at 22,300 and resistance at 22,420 and 22,650. We go through those levels in more detail in our market outlook for October 13 and the GIFT Nifty update.

Why the Asian selloff matters for Indian investors

Korea’s benchmark leans heavily on memory-chip makers. The Nifty 50 doesn’t, so a chip rout in Seoul won’t show up one-for-one here. The channel that matters more is sentiment and fund flows. Foreign selling on the scale seen in Seoul on Tuesday can pile onto Indian stocks at a time when foreign investors are already net sellers in our market. Our explainer on how FII and DII flows move the market explains why domestic buying has turned into the main cushion.

Keep an eye on tech names as well. Indian IT services firms don’t make chips, but a global retreat from tech and AI-linked shares can colour how the sector gets priced in an earnings week. Once trading begins, the two things to watch are whether the Nifty holds the 22,300 support analysts have flagged and whether foreign selling slows. We’ll have live levels through the session on our Stock Market Today India hub.