South Korea's KOSPI Falls 3% as Samsung Shares Drop Nearly 6%

South Korea's KOSPI fell 3% intraday to 5,831.67 points on Oct. 29 as Samsung Electronics dropped nearly 6%, while SK hynix shares slipped 0.4%. That left the country's two leading semiconductor companies with sharply different losses.

The benchmark's decline was 2.6 percentage points steeper than SK hynix's pullback. Samsung's drop was nearly 3 percentage points deeper than the KOSPI's decline, and the gap between Samsung and SK hynix approached 6 points. Samsung's percentage decline was close to 15 times the 0.4% move in SK hynix.

All three readings were negative, but the scale varied across the index and the two semiconductor stocks. The KOSPI's 3% move sat between the smaller loss in SK hynix and the much larger decline in Samsung. That left Samsung as the sharper decliner of the two companies, with SK hynix down less than 1%.

Samsung and SK hynix are semiconductor companies. The session paired a 3% index decline with a pronounced gap between the two companies' share moves.