Political unrest undermines South Korea's currency, stock market

Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Political instability in South Korea has caused the nation's won to plunge in value and has shaken confidence in the nation's stock market.

Investors previously viewed South Korean financial assets as strong investments, but South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol suddenly declaring martial law on Tuesday -- and which quickly was lifted -- caused financial turmoil in South Korea and elsewhere.

South Korea's political turmoil has negatively affected its currency and stock market to the detriment of investors in Asian markets, while competing markets in Latin America are benefiting due to their relatively stable economies and political systems.

The Bank of Korea has scheduled an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss how it will address market volatility after the South Korean won initially fell 2.9% in value to 1,444 per U.S. dollar.

The won recovered slightly to 1,422 per U.S. dollar after South Korean officials promised "unlimited liquidity" to stabilize South Korea's stock market.

Nvidia shares experienced bumpy trading on Tuesday as South Korea's political instability potentially endangers Nvidia's supply of South Korean-produced memory chips that are needed to ensure suitable performance for Nvidia technology.

Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang recently asked producer SK Hynix to step up its production of new high-bandwidth memory chips, called HBM4, to support production of Nvidia's Blackwell graphics processors.