Tariffs take toll on South Korea; KOSPI falls below 2,300 for first time in 17 months

Korea's benchmark KOSPI fell below the 23-hundred mark on Wednesday in the wake of the major U.S. tariffs that went into effect.

Markets elsewhere also took a hit.

Bae Eun-ji has the details.

South Korea's benchmark KOSPI has dipped below the 2,300 points, for the first time in almost a year and half.

The KOSPI index closed at 2-thousand-293-point-7 on Wednesday, down 1-point-7-4 percent from the day before.

The sharp decline comes after it already lost more than 5 percent in a single day on Monday.

Over the course of three days, the benchmark index has lost 139-point-7 trillion Korean won in market value, which is more than 94 billion dollars.

The country's tech-heavy KOSDAQ also slid more than 2-percent, to finish at 643-point-3-9.

The local currency also fell,.. with the won-dollar rate briefly declining to its lowest since the global financial crisis more than 16 years ago.

The Korean won dropped to 1,484 per dollar on Wednesday, the lowest since March 2009.

And it wasn't just South Korea that saw sharp declines on Wednesday.

In neighboring countries, Japan's Nikkei 225 lost almost 4 percent, while Taiwan's benchmark stock index also shed nearly 5-point-8 percent.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks also continued to drop amid tariff fears.

The S&P 500 fell sharply on Tuesday, to close below 5-thousand points for the first time in almost a year.

It has now lost 5-point-8-3 trillion dollars in value, for its steepest four days of losses since the index was created in the 1950s.

Apple shares have fallen more than 20 percent since last week's tariff announcement, wiping out 770 billion dollars in market cap over the past four days.

This was mainly because Apple is considered as one of the companies most exposed to the trade war, due to its heavy reliance on China clearly showing that the current uncertainty around tariffs is overwhelming.

Bae Eun-ji, Arirang News.