South Korea military says North Korea fired a ballistic missile

North Korean ballistic missile launches are a recurring feature of the calendar rather than a novel shock, and the market's treatment of them has followed a well-worn pattern: an initial haven bid into yen, gold and Treasuries that fades within the session when the launch reads as routine testing rather than escalation. The distinction that has historically mattered is the character of the test, short-range launches into the sea draw a shrug, while trajectories overflying Japan, intercontinental-range tests, or launches timed around allied exercises or summits have produced the more durable risk-off moves. The actors and their form are familiar: Pyongyang uses launches as signalling and leverage, Seoul and Tokyo issue condemnations, and the typical sequence runs from detection to UN Security Council discussion to sanctions rhetoric, none of which has tended to alter the underlying market trajectory. Worth noting is that repeated exposure has desensitised the reaction function over time, with each successive routine launch moving KOSPI and won less than the last. The follow-ons that separate signal from noise are whether the launch coincides with a broader provocation cycle, any South Korean or US military response beyond the rhetorical, and whether the flight profile suggests a genuine capability milestone rather than theatre. Absent those, precedent is a fleeting haven move and a retrace.