Asia’s stock markets dive amid Iran-Israel conflict, Wall Street jitters

Asia’s major stock markets have dropped sharply amid the resumption of conflict between Israel and Iran and growing expectations of interest rate hikes in the United States.

South Korea’s stock market suffered the steepest losses amid a region-wide sell-off on Monday, as investors followed Wall Street’s lead to unload high-priced tech equities linked to AI.

The benchmark KOSPI fell nearly 9 percent in early morning trading, triggering the exchange’s circuit breaker for the second time this year.

The Korea Exchange last activated the circuit breaker, which halts trading for 20 minutes to prevent panic selling, on March 4, when the index plunged a record 12.06 percent.

The KOSPI, which has been the best-performing major index in 2026, closed the day 8.29 percent lower after the resumption of trading.

Chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, South Korea’s two biggest firms by market capitalisation, both suffered heavy losses, dropping 10.2 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 3.9 percent, while the SSE Composite Index in Shanghai and Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong slid 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.

Taiwan’s TAIEX, which is dominated by the world’s largest contract chip maker TSMC, slumped 3.5 percent.