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SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Yonhap) -- Seoul shares opened sharply lower Wednesday, following overnight losses on Wall Street, as rising bond yields and oil prices weighed on technology stocks and dampened investor sentiment.

After opening 4.96 percent lower, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 453.77 points, or 6.61 percent, to 6,416.06 as of 09:15 a.m.

Shortly after the opening bell, program trading for the KOSPI-listed shares was suspended for five minutes, as the Korea Exchange (KRX) activated a sell-side sidecar.

A sell-side sidecar is triggered when the KOSPI 200 Futures Index falls 5 percent or more for at least one minute.

Overnight, Wall Street's major indexes closed lower, as stalled peace efforts between the United States and Iran weighed on investor sentiment and pushed oil prices higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.22 percent, while the benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.69 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.33 percent.

The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level since 2007 amid concerns that elevated energy prices could keep inflation high.

In Seoul, tech stocks were trading sharply lower.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics retreated 7.64 percent, while its chipmaking rival SK hynix dipped 9.63 percent.

Leading refiner SK Innovation fell 4.33 percent, and top automaker Hyundai Motor shed 6.09 percent.

Hanwha Aerospace rose 3.66 percent following reports that its U.S. unit had won a contract to deliver K9 self-propelled howitzer prototypes to the U.S. Army.

The Korean won was trading at 1,413.6 won against the U.S. dollar as of 9:15 a.m., down 0.04 won from the previous stock market session's close.

ejkim@yna.co.kr

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