[Anchor]
After a sharp decline yesterday (July 2), the KOSPI rebounded strongly today, reclaiming the 8,000 mark in just one day. Behind the extreme volatility in the stock market are so-called 'Samsung-Hynix' leveraged products. The trading volume of these products has far exceeded half of the actual stock trading value.
Reporter Min Gyeongho has the story.
[Reporter]
The KOSPI plunged again by more than 3% early in the session, falling to the 7,300 level.
However, the market shifted direction sharply starting at 10:00 a.m., recovering the 8,000 mark in the afternoon and even triggering a sidecar (a temporary suspension of program trading to stabilize the market).
The index eventually closed at 8,088, up 5.7%.
The intraday volatility reached 758 points, the second-highest level in history.
Samsung Electronics surged by 8% and SK Hynix by 10%, reclaiming the 300,000 won and 2.4 million won levels, respectively.
Although U.S. semiconductor stocks fell for two consecutive days due to negative news from Meta regarding its plan to sell excess data center resources to launch a cloud business, the Korean market judged the news as already absorbed and focused more on positive factors, leading to a successful rebound.
It appears that the U.S. employment data coming in below expectations, which lowered the possibility of monetary tightening, and anticipation for Samsung Electronics' earnings report next week were reflected in the market.
[Interview] Shin Seung-jin / Investment Information Team, Samsung Securities: Samsung Electronics' earnings report is scheduled for the 7th, and there is also the ADR listing of SK Hynix. Are these really negative events for Korean stocks? Or are they actually good...
The KOSPI is showing the highest volatility among major global stock markets under the same favorable and unfavorable conditions, as the concentration on large-cap semiconductor stocks intensifies.
The daily trading value of 16 single-stock leveraged ETF products for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, identified as a major cause of the increased volatility, has surged to reach 62% of the trading value of the underlying stocks themselves.
This is a highly unusual situation compared to the U.S. market, where the trading value of the largest single-stock leveraged product for Nvidia accounts for only 1 to 2% of the underlying stock's trading value.
Amidst the extreme volatility, the scale of forced liquidations—where stocks are sold off because individual investors cannot repay money borrowed from brokerage firms—reached 1.12 trillion won over the past month.
(Video reporting: Kim Hak-mo, Video editing: Kim Jin-won)
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