The KOSPI was 12.63 percent down at its worst on Wednesday and closed 5.98 percent down, taking back more than half the fall after the halt

5,262.77.

That is where the KOSPI got to at its worst on Wednesday, 12.63 percent below Tuesday's close and under the 5,300 level for the first time in nearly six months, according to Choi Ji-won at the Korea Herald.

It closed at 5,663.24.

The close

Lim Hye-rin at the Seoul Economic Daily reports the KOSPI finished down 360.42 points, or 5.98 percent, and the KOSDAQ finished at 662.68, down 43.17 points or 6.12 percent.

Work the arithmetic against Tuesday's close of 6,023.66 and the shape of the day comes out. At the low the index was 760.89 points down. At the bell it was 360.42 points down. So 400.47 points, which is 52.6 percent of the fall, came back after the market reopened from its halt, and the session that most of the world will remember as a crash of nearly 13 percent is recorded in the index history as a fall of just under 6 percent.

The index had opened higher. It was up 1.09 percent at 6,089.11 before it reversed.

The halt, and what is new about it

A circuit breaker stopped trading in KOSPI-listed shares at 12:32 p.m. It was the second consecutive session with a halt on the main board, which this site reported earlier on Wednesday. The Korea Herald adds a further first: trading on the KOSDAQ was also halted after that index fell more than 8 percent, and both boards being stopped on two consecutive sessions has not happened before.

None of that is discretionary. A circuit breaker fires on a percentage.

Who was selling

As of 2:30 p.m., the Korea Herald reports, retail investors had sold a net total of nearly 2 trillion won, about $1.38bn, and foreign investors a net 1 trillion won. Institutions were net buyers of around 2.9 trillion won.

The day before, the same pattern ran the other way round. Foreign investors sold nearly 5 trillion won of KOSPI shares on Tuesday and retail investors absorbed much of it, buying a net 4.3 trillion won, on a day the index fell almost 11 percent in its steepest single session since early March.

Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, told the Korea Herald that Wednesday's move went well beyond a normal market move and that the selling appeared to be driven largely by capitulation, as hopes of a rebound after Tuesday faded. He also said sentiment had deteriorated to the point where many investors doubt the current level marks the bottom, even with valuations at unprecedented lows. That is his reading and it is his, not this desk's.

Against the peak

The KOSPI reached an intraday record of 9,385.59 on June 19. At Wednesday's low it was 44 percent below that, the Korea Herald reports. Measured at the close instead, it is 39.7 percent below.

The document

There is no primary document behind this item, and the reason is worth recording rather than hiding. The Korea Exchange publishes no English-language notice of a circuit breaker or of a daily index close. Its statistics portal at data.krx.co.kr was opened directly this morning and returns a login page. The closing levels here therefore rest on two named reporters at two Seoul outlets whose figures agree with each other and with the previous close, and not on an exchange record.