SEOUL (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets:
** South Korean shares plunged to a near 10-year low on Friday, triggering circuit breakers on the main index for the first time in nearly two decades, as panic over the coronavirus led to a rout in global equities. The won slid to a four-year low, while the benchmark bond yield soared.
** By 0233 GMT, the benchmark KOSPI was down 128.68 points, or 7.02%, at 1,705.65. It earlier fell as much as 8.2% to the lowest since late 2011, and has lost 22.39% so far this year.
** The index was set to post the biggest weekly decline since the 2008 financial crisis.
** The Korea Exchange activated trading curbs on the local stock market for a second straight day on Friday.
** The Bank of Korea said on Friday its seven-member committee was discussing whether to hold a rare inter-meeting review to cut policy interest rates to a new record-low. The bank has not delivered an emergency rate cut since October 2008.
** South Korea's FX authorities said they will act to stem any herd-like behaviour in the currency market, while multiple dealers told Reuters that the authorities were suspected to have sold dollars to curb the won's weakness.
** Foreigners were net sellers of 570.6 billion won ($466.22 million) worth of shares on the main board.
** The won was quoted at 1,224.3 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 1.45% lower than its previous close of 1,206.5.
** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,224.4 per U.S. dollar, down 1.1% from the previous day, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,221.4 per dollar.
** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 4.16%, while Japanese stocks fell 7.97%.
** The trading volume during the session in the KOSPI index was 473.87 million shares. Of the total traded issues of 904, the number of advancing shares was 8.
** In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.18 points to 111.33.
** The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 7.6 basis points to 1.140%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 12.9 basis points to 1.515%.
(Reporting by Joori Roh; Editing by Aditya Soni)