Stocks exposed to North Korea are getting pounded after the sudden breakdown of Trump and Kim's summit
- Stocks around the world are taking a pounding Thursday, after talks between US President Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un abruptly ended earlier than scheduled during their summit in Vietnam.
- South Korean stocks were particularly badly hit, with South Korea's benchmark Kospi index dropping close to 2%.
- Adding to jitters: an alarmingly poor sentiment indicator come out of China's manufacturing sector.
- You can follow the latest market developments live with Markets Insider.
Stocks around the world are taking a pounding Thursday, especially Korean ones, after talks between US President Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un abruptly ended earlier than scheduled during their summit in Vietnam.
The sudden end to talks saw the two leaders cancel a signing ceremony, after they were unable to strike an agreement on North Korea's denuclearization.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index dropped close to 2% on Thursday.
Per a tweet from CNBC's Joumanna Bercetche, Hyundai Elevator, a branch of South Korean conglomerate Hyundai, which provides elevators and escalators, lost as much as 19% of its value on the day. Shinwon Corporation, which manufactures handbags and clothes, was down almost 22%.
The collapse in talks also rattled global sentiment on a day that had already seen an alarmingly poor sentiment indicator come out of China's manufacturing sector. The IHS Markit manufacturing PMI, a widely watched data point, slipped to a 3-year low in February, and dropped even further than expected.
"As if on cue, more weak data poured out of China," Jasper Lawler, head of research at London Capital Group wrote in an email. Factory activity in China contracted for a third straight month in February as export orders fell to the lowest level since the global crisis, he said.
Adding further fuel to the negative fire in markets were comments from US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that a trade deal between the US and China is not yet certain.
Global stocks were not impacted in the same manner as Korean markets, but most indexes are nursing losses of some sort on the day. Here's the scoreboard as of around 9.15 a.m. GMT (4.15 a.m. ET):
- South Korea's Kospi ended 1.8% lower, with the biggest faller on the index being Saehwa Imc, a tire-manufacturer, which lost 23% on the day.
- Elsewhere in Asia, Chinese stocks were broadly lower, with the Shanghai Composite, China's benchmark index, down around 0.45%. Japan's Nikkei was off 0.8%.
- European stocks were nursing smaller losses, with the Euro Stoxx 50 broad index down around 0.15% on the day, and Germany's DAX 0.24% lower. The FTSE 100 in the UK was the biggest loser, slumping 0.75%.
- In the US, futures point to similarly small losses, with both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones set to open 0.2% lower, and the tech heavy Nasdaq, which is more exposed to Asia, down around 0.4%.