'Samjeon-Nix' Plummets Over 8%… Leverage Trading Decreases, But Volatility Persists

[Anchor]

The KOSPI, which saw its largest-ever surge last Friday, plunged by more than 5% again today (the 3rd). While trading in single-stock leverage products has noticeably decreased, extreme volatility without a middle ground remains unabated.

Reporter Kim Hye-min has the details.

[Reporter]

The volatility of the KOSPI continued today.

Following a record-breaking surge last Friday, the index plummeted by over 5% today to close at 6,257.

SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which had hit the upper price limit, both plunged by more than 8%.

Trading value for the 16 single-stock leverage products plummeted to the 1.3 trillion won range—a drop to less than one-tenth of its peak, and less than half compared to last Friday when the deposit requirement was raised to 30 million won.

Although the trading volume of leverage products, which had been pointed to as the cause of the sharp fluctuations, has decreased, the skewed market structure where just two semiconductor stocks heavily sway the entire index was reaffirmed.

[Interview / Kim Dae-jong, Professor of Business Administration, Sejong University : Semiconductor companies like Micron Technology in the U.S. account for only about 1% to 2% of the total U.S. market capitalization.]

Market sentiment also appears to have been partially affected by semiconductor stocks taking a breather in the New York stock market over the weekend, as well as concerns over the unwinding of the yen carry trade—where investment funds could flow out of the U.S. as the Japanese yen strengthened due to foreign exchange market interventions by the U.S. and Japan.

However, the prevailing assessment in the securities industry is that today's drop largely remained at the level of profit-taking following last Friday's overheating.

[Interview / Kim Dong-won, Head of Research Division, KB Securities : We assess that a significant portion of credit trading volume was resolved as the KOSPI dropped 22% throughout July, and leverage trading volume has accordingly entered a downward trend. In particular, with the KOSPI P/E ratio approaching 5x, investment attractiveness has increased....]

Experts expect our stock market to find its bottom based on the earnings of AI-related companies such as AMD, Palantir, and SanDisk scheduled for release this week.

(Video Reported by Park Jin-ho | Video Edited by Park Ji-in | Design by Lee Jong-jung)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.