SEOUL—A South Korean securities firm employee apparently committed suicide Wednesday by jumping off an apartment block after stock market falls caused big losses to his customers, police said.
Police said the 48-year-old man surnamed Seo was found dead near his apartment in the southeastern city of Daegu after sending his friends and family mobile text messages complaining about the market plunge.
The messages said prices of the stocks owned by his clients nosedived and he felt sorry, a Daegu police spokesman told AFP.
Seo “apparently killed himself,” he said, adding CCTV footage showed him coming out of an elevator alone on the 18th floor of the apartment building before he was found dead on the ground.
South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI closed 3.64 percent lower Tuesday, declining along with other Asian markets on fears fueled by the historic US credit downgrade and Europe’s debt woes.
The massive loss prompted the South’s bourse operator to temporarily suspend program selling for five minutes.
The index recovered some ground on Wednesday to end 0.27 percent higher.
South Korea has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, with 15,413 taking their own lives in 2009 in the country of some 50 million people.