Nearly half of the entire trade volume in South Korea’s stock market this year until mid-September stemmed from day trading, indicating individual traders’ growing tendency to seek instant profit from stocks with high price volatility, data showed Monday.

From January to Sept. 15, day traders bought or sold some 48 percent of shares, or 89.5 billion shares, on the first-tier and second-tier markets, according to data by the sole market operator the Korea Exchange.

This comes in contrast to the value of stocks day-traded in Korea. Of all traded shares in value, less than 30 percent, or 420 trillion won ($371.2 billion), came from day trading.

Individual investors were involved in over 95 out of 100 day trades in regards to trade volume, by trading 85.6 billion stocks over the cited period.

Stocks in low price were frequented by day traders. Over half of the short-term trading scheme was observed in stocks priced below 10,000 won. The trade volume of stocks valued at over 100,000 won was less than a fifth of all trades.

More than seven out of 10 day trades were made on the Kosdaq market, while the value of stocks day-traded on the secondary bourse topped just over 50 percent of the entire day trading.

Many of the top 10 stocks were bearing risks, having either suffered turbulences in stock prices, experienced trade suspensions or delisted.

Hanjin Shipping, the most day-traded Kospi stock this year, is not traded anymore. Jumping fivefold to 1,670 won on Jan. 16 in three weeks, Hanjin Shipping closed at 12 won in the last trading day on March 6. The next day, the KRX delisted the nation’s largest logistics firm as the court declared the firm bankrupt.

Stock price fluctuation was also seen in the Kosdaq-listed KD Construction, which solely took up over 10 percent of the entire day trading volume. The price surged nearly threefold to 620 won in the Feb. 16 closing, from at around 200 won at the end of January. The intraday high on Feb. 16 reached 723 won. Its stock value halved to below 300 won in late March. KD Construction stock trading was suspended for three weeks from mid-May.

Top 10 stocks on the Kospi market in day trading volume accounted for 10.6 percent of all day trading, while those on the Kosdaq market took up 24.1 percent.

Day trading volume doubled in 2015 compared to a year prior, while in 2016 it rose 4.7 percent from the previous year. 

By Son Ji-hyoung 
(consnow@heraldcorp.com)