Mom and pop investors are happy with 66.5 percent in stock yields

As the Korean stock market has entered the recovery phase since stock prices were in free fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, small investors have turned out to be one of the biggest beneficiaries with high stock yields. The market has been concerned if individual investors could see a huge loss during the time flocks of overseas investors left Korea. Nevertheless, mom and pop investors, better equipped with investment skills and technics than before, have made a good profit in the stock market.

The top 10 popular stocks among individual investors – from March 19 to June 5 when the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) dropped to the 1,400 range in 10 years and 8 months – recorded 66.5 percent of yields on average, according to the Korea Exchange on Sunday. Simply put, an one-million-won investment in the top 10 stocks translates into 1.665 million won in returns.

SK surged by 2.4 times from 107,000 to 257,000 won, recording the highest increase rate in the Korean stock market during the same period. Amid high market expectations about second batteries and non-face-to-face services, Samsung SDI, KakaoTalk and Naver marked high yields of 103.1 percent, 87.31 percent and 60.42 percent, respectively. Samsung Electronics showed as high as 29.2 percent in yields thanks to a large number of individual investors purchasing stocks amid the growing optimism over a recovering semiconductor market. Fairly offsetting the impacts of overseas investors leaving the Korean market, small investors have played a key role in accommodating the quick recovery in stock prices. They purchased stocks worth 7.72 trillion won between March 20 and June 5, while overseas investors sold 10.78 trillion won.

With that being said, overseas investors made higher yields than small investors did. The top 10 popular stocks among them averaged 69.7 percent in yields during the period. They have turned out to make large investments in promising stocks such as Celltrion and Samsung BioLogics.


zion37@donga.com