Donghak Gaemi Net Purchase of Domestic Stocks 24 Trillion Won This Year... Mostly Losses

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] This year, individual investors in the domestic stock market have incurred losses in most stocks and securities products, according to a recent investigation.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 24th, individual investors have net purchased stocks worth 16.3295 trillion KRW and 4.4729 trillion KRW in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets respectively, as of the 22nd of this year. When including trading amounts of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) and Exchange Traded Products (ETP), the total net purchases by individuals in the domestic stock market this year reached 24.33 trillion KRW. This contrasts with foreign investors who net sold 10.83 trillion KRW including ETPs during the same period.

The proportion of individual investors in KOSPI market transactions was 66.23% as of the 22nd, an increase of 11.21 percentage points compared to the end of last year. The trading share of individuals in the KOSDAQ market also rose by 1.70 percentage points during the same period, reaching 84.25%.

Conversely, the trading proportions of foreign investors in KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets fell to 18.40% and 10.77%, respectively. These figures represent decreases of 1.29 percentage points and 1.79 percentage points compared to the end of last year.

The stock price of Samsung Electronics, which individuals net purchased nearly 10 trillion KRW worth of this year, dropped by 14.43% in 2024. The stock prices of Naver and Kakao, which were net purchased by approximately 1.7 trillion KRW and 1.4 trillion KRW respectively this year, also fell by 20.74% and 18.22%.

Fueled by last year's stock investment boom, more than one in four Koreans began investing in stocks, pushing the number of stock owners in South Korea into the 10 million range for the first time. According to the Korea Securities Depository, the number of domestic stock owners reached 13.84 million at the end of last year, a sharp increase of 4.65 million (50.6%) compared to the previous year. Individual owners accounted for 13.74 million, representing 99.2% of the total.