Stock Market Today: Asia Catches Wall Street's Rout — the Nikkei Falls Nearly 6 Percent and Korea Trips a Circuit Breaker
Wall Street's worst session since April 2025 did not stay in New York. Overnight, Japan's Nikkei fell nearly 6 percent into bear-market territory, South Korea's KOSPI plunged more than 8 percent at its worst and tripped a 20-minute circuit breaker, and US futures pointed to a mixed Friday open with the October payrolls report still to come.
The sell-off that took 5.52 percent off the Nasdaq on Thursday went global overnight. Japan's Nikkei closed at 57,420.23, down 5.99 percent and into bear-market territory, in the Samuel & Co morning brief read by this desk, after briefly sinking around 7 percent in reporting flagged by Reuters and the Associated Press; SoftBank was down about 11 percent. South Korea's KOSPI fell 5.41 percent to 5,092.38 after a far worse open. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 1.06 percent, Shanghai 1.14 percent, and Australia's ASX 200 0.68 percent.
Seoul was the morning's epicentre. The KOSPI activated a Stage 1 circuit breaker at 9:03 a.m. Korea time — 7:03 p.m. Eastern on Thursday — halting cash-market trading for 20 minutes with the index at 4,924.61, down 8.52 percent from the prior close, according to the Korea Exchange record carried by Yonhap and Reuters. The KOSDAQ triggered a sell-side sidecar minutes later. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell more than 10 and 13 percent at one point before paring their losses, the early KOSPI low was the index's weakest since February 6, Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il convened an emergency policy meeting, and by mid-session the KOSPI had cut its loss to 3.9 percent.
Europe opened lower in the follow-through — France's CAC 40 down 1.1 percent, Germany's DAX 1.5 percent, Britain's FTSE 100 1.4 percent in the Private Banker file read this run — while US futures, the numbers New York wakes up to, pointed in two directions at once: S&P futures near flat to slightly higher, Nasdaq 100 futures up roughly 1 percent, and Dow futures down about 0.9 percent in the morning brief's London-morning snapshot.
What settles Friday in New York is not Asia but the labour report. Consensus for the October payrolls report, due this afternoon Eastern time, looks for about 59,000 jobs with the unemployment rate steady at 4.2 percent, after September's meagre 29,000 gain — and markets have been pricing roughly a 70 percent chance of another 25-basis-point Federal Reserve hike in December, which a hot print would keep alive. Yesterday was a one-day flush or the start of a deeper AI unwind is, as the morning brief puts the question, the dial this afternoon's number turns.
