Trading Suspended for 5 Minutes
Korea Exchange publicly disclosed on March 12 that it activated a sidecar at 1:04 p.m. in the KOSPI market.
A sidecar is activated to temporarily suspend stock trading to alleviate shocks from market turbulence. In the KOSPI market, it is triggered when futures prices rise or fall by more than five percent from the previous day's closing prices and last for one minute. Once a sidecar is activated, program trading prices go invalid for 5 minutes. In the KOSDAQ market, it is activated when futures prices rise or fall by more than 6 percent.
The sidecar triggered on March 12 in the KOSPI market is the 49th in history. The last time a sidecar was activated in the Korean bourse was at 9:06 a.m. on Oct. 4, 2011. Korea Exchange invoked a sidecar based on Article 16 of the Securities Market Operation Regulations as the KOSPI futures market fell 5.06 percent from the previous day and trading continued for one minute. At the time of the sidecar's activation at 1:04 p.m., the KOSPI stood at 1,808.90, down 5.21 percent from the previous trading day. At the same time, the KOSDAQ index was 555.59, down 6.74 percent from the previous trading day.
In the meantime, a sidecar cannot be activated after 40 minutes before the end of afternoon trade in the stock market and can only be activated once a day.