'Black Tuesday': Seoul stocks crash over 10% as chip rout deepens

Korea's benchmark KOSPI plunged more than 10 percent Tuesday as a global semiconductor sell-off and concerns over intensifying competition from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) hammered chip stocks.

KOSPI closed at 6023.63, down 10.84 percent from the previous session.

It opened at 6400.27, or 5.26 percent lower, and extended losses throughout the session, briefly falling below the 6,000-point mark in afternoon trading.

Heavy selling triggered a sell-side sidecar on the main bourse at 9:06 a.m., according to the Korea Exchange, marking the 22nd such sidecar this year.

As losses deepened, a circuit breaker was activated at 10:14 a.m., halting trading for KOSPI-listed shares for 20 minutes.

Foreign investors led the sell-off, offloading a net 4.98 trillion won ($3.41 billion) worth of shares.

Retail investors were net buyers of 4.32 trillion won, while institutional investors purchased a net 638.7 billion won, but their buying was insufficient to offset the heavy foreign selling.

Chipmakers bore the brunt of the sell-off.

SK hynix plunged 14.65 percent to 1.55 million won, while