South Korean stocks dropped over 6 percent on Friday, triggering a sell-side sidecar after hitting an all-time high in early trading, News.Az reports, citing Xinhua.

The benchmark KOSPI tumbled 488.23 points, or 6.12 percent, to close at 7,493.18, while the smaller KOSDAQ dived 61.27 points, or 5.14 percent, to finish at 1,129.82.

The KOSPI breached the historic 8,000-point mark for the first time in early trading before suffering a massive sell-off to close sharply lower.

The extreme volatility activated a sell-side sidecar in the afternoon session as the KOSPI 200 futures plunged over 5 percent.

The sidecar refers to a temporary halt of program trading orders for five minutes that is triggered when the KOSPI 200 futures rise or fall by more than 5 percent.

Foreign and institutional investors led the sell-off to take recent profits, while retail investors prevented the deeper rout through dip-buying in the KOSPI.

The South Korean won versus the U.S. dollar exchange rate finished its daytime session at 1,500.8 won per dollar as of 3:30 p.m. local time (0630 GMT), up 9.8 won from the previous session's daytime close.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics and memory chip giant SK Hynix ended 8.61 percent and 7.66 percent lower, respectively.

The country's top automaker Hyundai Motor dipped 1.69 percent, and the largest battery maker LG Energy Solution tumbled 5.66 percent.

Biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer Samsung Biologics fell 2.07 percent, and the leading aerospace and defense company Hanwha Aerospace plummeted 6.89 percent.

The biggest shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries went down 4.62 percent, and the energy infrastructure leader Doosan Enerbility was down 5.38 percent.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev