Samsung drops 9.48% as chip rout trips Korea circuit breakers

Korean chip stocks fell steeply on Thursday October 15 and pulled the wider market down with them. Samsung Electronics closed at 210,000 won, 9.48% below its close of 232,000 won on Wednesday. At the Bank of Korea’s rate of 1,344.6 won per US dollar for October 15, that closing price is worth about US$156.18 per share.

The KOSPI, South Korea’s main stock index, ended the session 7.57% lower at 5,554.22, The Korea Herald reported.

A market rout and circuit breakers

The Korea Herald said the index had opened 5.59% down and lost more ground as the day went on. In an earlier report, the paper put the KOSPI’s fall at 8.13% at 1:17 p.m., with the index at 5,515.76. Circuit breakers were triggered on the KOSPI and on the Kosdaq, Korea’s smaller, technology-heavy market, The Korea Herald reported.

Accounts of the chipmakers’ losses changed during the day. At midday, The Korea Herald reported that Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were each down more than 10%. Its report after the close described both as down roughly 10%.

The Korea Times said the KOSPI had now fallen by more than 7%, two days after a drop of over 5%, and described the two chipmakers as leading the slide. The paper said the falls had wiped out gains that many retail investors had held on paper, leaving them with losses, and pointed to fears of forced selling.

Samsung down 23.36% since September 21

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Thursday’s fall was Samsung’s largest one-day drop since July 28, when the shares fell 13.39%, 51 sessions earlier. Between September 21 and October 15, the shares lost 23.36%. Over the same window, the TIGER 200, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the KOSPI 200 index of large Korean companies, fell 8.2%.

Record profit and a buyback still running

On October 8, Samsung filed preliminary consolidated results for the third quarter of 2026, showing operating profit of 107.4 trillion won on revenue of 195 trillion won. Operating profit was 20.01% higher than in the second quarter and the highest in at least six quarters.

Samsung Electronics is scheduled to hold a conference call on its third-quarter 2026 results on October 29 at 10:00 a.m. Korean time. Its share buyback, filed on August 21 as a plan to repurchase 53,285,968 common shares worth 15 trillion won for employee stock compensation, runs until November 21.

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Information only, not investment advice.