According to Yonhap, South Korea's Korea Exchange (KRX) activated a sell-side sidecar for the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) on Friday after the index fell sharply, led by losses in tech heavyweights. Program trading in KOSPI-listed shares was suspended for five minutes around 11:28 a.m., and the KOSPI was down more than 4% as of 11:32 a.m. The decline came amid rising Middle East tensions after U.S. President Donald Trump said in a media interview that he was deciding whether to launch a "massive attack" on Iran that could be "bigger than ever before." A sell-side sidecar is triggered when the KOSPI 200 Futures Index falls 5% or more for at least one minute.