The Korea Exchange halted program selling after the Kospi fell more than 5 percent at the open

The Korea Exchange suspended program sell orders on the Kospi at about 9:10 a.m. on Thursday, after the index opened at 6,960.50, down 4.45 percent, and kept going. By 9:21 a.m. it stood at 6,886.48, down 5.46 percent from Wednesday's close of 7,284.41, according to exchange figures reported by Lee Young-ho at Seoul Economic Daily. Memory led it down. SK hynix fell 9.89 percent to 1,876,000 won and Samsung Electronics fell 7.33 percent to 259,000 won, with SK Square down 11.51 percent and Samsung Electro-Mechanics down 10.05 percent. In New York the night before, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed down 2.08 percent, Micron fell more than 8 percent and AMD fell 3.46 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 0.38 percent. The Kospi had gained about 6 percent on Wednesday. Taiwan's benchmark was little changed in Thursday trading. The Korea Exchange published no notice of the halt that could be linked here, and the Seoul session had not closed when this published.