Subtitled News: "Changing Hands Every 16 Minutes"... 'Ultra-Short-Term Leveraged and Inverse ETFs' Shake Up KOSPI

On July 14, the trading value of 16 types of 2x leveraged and 2x inverse ETFs tracking Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reached 18.2827 trillion won.

This accounts for a staggering 40% of the total trading value of the KOSPI yesterday.

The explosive increase in trading value is attributed to what is known as "ultra-short-term trading" by investors.

In fact, the turnover rate for "SOL SK Hynix 2x Inverse," a product that yields double the profit when the stock price falls, recorded 2,431.93% yesterday.

This means the ownership of the shares changed 24 times in a single day.

The turnover rate for "PLUS Samsung Electronics 2x Inverse" also exceeded 1,171%.

Half of the top 10 stocks by turnover rate were these so-called "leveraged and inverse" ETFs, which track the two semiconductor stocks.

The market analyzes this concentration as a key factor exacerbating stock price volatility.

Experts point out that as trading repeatedly swings between leveraged products betting on price increases and inverse products betting on declines, even a slight change in market direction causes massive amounts of capital to move at once, significantly widening intraday volatility.

In particular, a trend has been observed where retail capital moves rapidly between leveraged and inverse products in response to changes in foreign investors' futures positions.

As the KOSPI rose today, it recovered the 7,000-point level, but it also showed a sharp upward trend, triggering a buy-side sidecar at approximately 9:17 a.m.

With buy-side and sell-side sidecars being triggered alternately almost every day recently, concerns are growing over the extreme volatility in the domestic stock market.

It is reported that at an emergency meeting held yesterday by the Korea Financial Investment Association with CEOs of major domestic securities firms, participants reached a consensus on raising the minimum deposit required for leveraged investments and discussed ways to reduce the impact of daily rebalancing trades on the underlying asset market.

Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.