Korea's market halted trading as the crash went global overnight

The sell-off jumped continents overnight: South Korea's Kospi plunged almost 9% at the Friday open, triggering a 20-minute trading halt, after the Nasdaq's 5.52% Thursday drop left it more than 10% below its October 6 record.

Wall Street's fear gauge spiked with it — the VIX surged roughly 70%, its biggest one-day jump in almost two years, to its highest level in seven months — and the Nasdaq 100 sank 6.36%, its worst day since March 2020.

The neoclouds kept falling hardest: CoreWeave is down 76% since its June 2025 peak and Nebius 58% since June, while one strategist told CNN the slowdown is what the market wants — “We want a slowdown in the AI buildout. It was too frenzied and speculative.”