We start off by taking a look at how the stocks are doing.
The Korean stock market opened amid 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.
We have Kim Ji-yeon on the line for us.
Ji-yeon, let's start with the Korean KOSPI.

Sure Mark.
According to the Korea Exchange, the nation's benchmark KOSPI started early trading slightly lower than the previous session at 19-92 on Friday.
This comes after it closed below the psychologically important two-thousand-mark the previous day to the lowest level in more than two years... as investor confidence waned due to concerns of a slowing global economy.
Institutions had sold nearly 1-hundred 50-million U.S. dollars worth of KOSPI shares in a single day on Thursday.
The tech heavy KOSDAQ also started zero-point-two-percent lower than yesterday's closing at the 655-level on Friday.
In response, senior officials of the Bank of Korea held a meeting to monitor the situation to discuss countermeasures following big declines in stock markets in the U.S. and other major countries.
Wall Street had tumbled Thursday on U.S. tech giant Apple's profit warning... which has sent shockwaves across global markets.
The Dow Jones index closed 2-point-8-percent to 22-thousand-685... while the S&P 500 lose two-and-a-half-percent to 2-thousand-448.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq also plunged 3-percent to 6-thousand-464.
Apple's stock plunged nearly 10-percent to 142 dollars, its biggest single-day drop in six years.
Apple's chief executive Tim Cook warned the company's first quarter revenue of the fiscal year would be about 10-percent lower than expected... at 84-billion dollars.
He blamed the slowing economy in China for the weaker sales figures.
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.
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.
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.
Officials from China and the U.S. are reportedly planning to hold meetings to hammer out a deal on trade next month... to try to turn the current trade truce into something more permanent before the deadline in March.
Mark?

Thank you Ji-yeon for the report.