We start off by taking a look at how stocks are doing.<br />South Korea's main stock market opened on Friday after a plunge in share prices in the U.S. and other major markets... over lower-than-expected sales by U.S. smartphone maker Apple... and concerns of a slowing global economy.<br />We have Kim Ji-yeon on the line for us.<br />Ji-yeon, let's start with Korea's KOSPI.<br /><br /> Sure Mark.<br />According to the Korea Exchange, the nation's benchmark KOSPI in its intra-day trading just below the psychologically important 2-thousand level on Friday.<br /> This comes after it closed below the mark to lowest level in more than two years... as investor confidence waned due to concerns of a slowing global economy.<br />Institutions had sold nearly 1-hundred 50-million U.S. dollars worth of KOSPI shares in a single day on Thursday.<br />In response, senior officials from the Bank of Korea held a meeting to monitor the situation and discuss countermeasures following big declines in stock markets in the U.S. and other major countries.<br /><br /> Apple's profit warning has been cited as the major reason for market rour on Wall Street,... but it also sent shockwaves around the world....<br /><br />That's right. <br /> Japan's Nikkei fell by more than three-percent from the previous session... while the TOPIX dipped by more than two-percent in intra-day trading on Friday.<br />MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained slightly by zero-point-two-percent.<br /> All three major U.S. stock indexes were down by more than 2 percent, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq posting a 3 percent loss on Thursday.<br /> Apple's stock plunged nearly 10-percent to 142 dollars, its biggest single-day drop in six years.<br />Apple's chief executive Tim Cook warned the company's revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal year would be about 10-percent lower than expected... at 84-billion dollars.<br />He blamed the slowing economy in China for the weaker sales figures.<br /> With this, pundits went on to say that the China-U.S. trade war, and the billions of dollars in tariffs they had imposed on each other during the latter half of last year has affected Apple's business.<br /> Weaker-than-expected U.S. manufacturing figures also exacerbated market anxiety... a report from the Institute for Supply Management shows the U.S. had suffered the biggest drop since 2008, the height of the financial crisis.<br />The International Monetary Fund has already forecast that China is set to record the slowest growth rate in 28 years in 2018 with 6-point-6-percent.<br /> Officials from China and the U.S. are reportedly planning to hold meetings to hammer out a deal on trade this month... to try to turn the current trade truce into something more permanent before the deadline in March.<br />Mark?<br /><br /> Thank you Ji-yeon for the report. <br />
