Individual trading via smartphone rose 100%

A number of individuals trading Korean shares doubled last year from the previous year as more people had access to the stock market on smartphone apps from local brokerages.

The total trading volume on both the nation’s benchmark Kospi and the secondary Kosdaq markets amounted to 119.4 billion shares worth 658 trillion won ($542 billion) last year, up from 59.7 billion shares worth 331 trillion won in 2014, according to Korea Exchange. That represents a 100 percent increase in shares and a 98.7 percent increase in won terms.

Individuals’ trading volume accounted for 45.43 percent of the total last year, the most since 2012 when it reached 48.58 percent. In 2014, it was around 38.53 percent.

“First of all, there was more trading last year due to the market’s volatility,” a representative for Korea Exchange said. “Additionally, more people had accesses to smartphones, which allow them to trade stocks from their phones.”

There were more of those frequent, individual traders on the Kosdaq market than the Kospi. 46.71 percent of the total trading volume in the Kosdaq market was made by such traders, while it was 43.7 percent on the Kospi market.

Those who made multiple trades in a day preferred small cap shares over large and mid-caps. In the case of the Kospi market, they accounted for 29.67 percent in large cap shares’ total trading volume, while 52.23 percent of the trading volume in small cap shares was by such traders. In mid cap shares, they accounted for 36.79 percent.

Of the total number of investors who traded in the Kosdaq’s small cap shares, 49.60 percent were such traders. They accounted for 48.27 percent in the Kosdaq’s mid cap shares’ trading and 42.26 percent in small cap shares.

35.20 percent of these individuals traded blue-chip shares, while 50.01 percent of them traded low-priced stocks.

In the Kospi market, the highest volumes traded by stock were 8.68 billion shares for Mirae Corporation and 2.72 billion shares for Schnell Biopharmaceuticals. Individuals represented the highest portion of the total trading volume for DongA One Corporations, 76.46 percent.

On the Kosdaq, the highest volume traded by such traders was 3.78 billion shares of KD Group.

BY PARK JIN-SEOK [kim.youngnam@joongang.co.kr]