The MSCI emerging-market equities index dropped over 2% on June 23, marking its steepest single-day decline since May 15. The culprit: a brutal tech selloff that hit South Korean semiconductor stocks with particular ferocity, sending shockwaves across Asia and into global indices.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the two memory chip titans that anchor South Korea’s stock market, saw their shares plummet more than 12% in a single session. The Kospi index fell somewhere between 5% and 10%.
Broadcom’s forecast lit the fuse
The trigger came from an unlikely source: Broadcom. The US chipmaker issued a cautious outlook on AI-chip demand earlier in the week, and that single forecast revision was enough to unravel months of accumulated optimism in semiconductor names worldwide.
The selling wasn’t confined to Seoul. The Nasdaq and other major indices felt the pressure from June 23 through June 25, as investors globally reassessed whether AI-adjacent valuations had gotten ahead of reality.
