Jeju Air, South Korea industrial output

South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.3%, while the Kosdaq lost 0.41% Monday, as the country grapples with political turmoil and downbeat industrial data among other things.

South Korea witnessed its deadliest air disaster on Sunday that claimed 179 lives when a Jeju Air plane crashed into a wall at Muan International Airport, bursting into flames.

South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok instructed an urgent safety inspection of the nation’s airline operation system, to be carried out once the recovery efforts for the Jeju Air crash are completed.

Shares of Jeju Air hit an all-time low Monday, according to FactSet data, and were last down 8.53%. Other Korean airlines’ stocks were volatile. Korean Air slipped 1%, budget airlines T’way Air and Jin Air fell 3.23% and 2.12%, respectively. Air Busan climbed over 13%.

South Korea’s industrial output contracted 0.7% on a monthly basis in November, greater than the 0.4% decline expected by Reuters. On an annual basis, industrial output rose 0.1%, smaller than Reuters’ expectations of a 0.4% climb. This compares to October’s reading of a 6.3% increase.

The country’s parliament on Dec. 27 voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo, not long after President Yoon Suk Yeol got impeached as a result of his brief martial law decree, which plunged the country into political turmoil.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.4% lower.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 0.21% lower in its first hour of trade, while the Topix traded around the flatline.

U.S. stocks fell Friday, led by technology names, but major indexes still rose for the week.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 333.59 points, or 0.77%, to 42,992.21, falling for the first time in six sessions. The S&P 500 fell 1.11% to 5,970.84. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1.49% to 19,722.03, as Tesla dropped about 5% and Nvidia fell 2%.

—CNBC’s Yun Li and Pia Singh contributed to this report.