South Korea waives brokerage margin rule amid AI regulation selloff

On November 6, 2026, South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Lee Kyung-il convened an emergency market review meeting in Seoul, attended by senior officials from the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Bank of Korea, according to a Yonhap News Agency report relayed by Wall Street CN. The meeting announced that brokerages would be exempted from maintaining a 140% margin requirement on credit financing for three months, effective November 9, with the stated aim of preventing force-liquidations from amplifying market turbulence during sharp declines. Lee said afterward that authorities are closely watching excessive panic and one-sided market moves, and that additional stabilization measures are ready if volatility widens further.

The report attributes the policy to panic selling in technology stocks sparked by concerns that tighter regulation of AI data centers was approaching. On Friday morning the KOSPI extended its opening losses past 8%, triggering a circuit breaker that suspended trading for 20 minutes, the 11th such suspension of the year. The index touched an intraday low of 4911.28 before closing at 5059.69, down 6.02%. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix was among the hardest hit, falling more than 13% at one point and still closing down over 10%. After the announcement, the KOSPI's decline narrowed at one point from more than 8% to around 3.5%.

As of the report, the exemption takes effect on November 9 and runs for three months. No further stabilization measures had been disclosed, and no timeline was given for any decision on whether to extend the relief once the period expires.