Retail Investors Shift to Debt-Financed Samsung and SK Hynix Trading as Single-Stock Leverage Regulations Tighten

As government regulations on single-stock leverage products are tightened, retail investors' funds are rapidly shifting to spot margin trading for major semiconductor blue chips.

After financial authorities mandated a minimum cash deposit of 30 million won for purchasing leverage products starting from late last month, leverage trading volume—which exceeded 12 trillion won as of the 30th of last month—plummeted by 93% within a week.

On the other hand, spot margin loans have surged.

According to Koscom, the daily average volume of new margin loans for Samsung Electronics as of yesterday surged by more than 52%, rising from 2,487,364 shares on the 24th of last month to 3,788,924 shares through the 14th.

SK Hynix also saw an increase of about 25%, going from 526,625 shares to 660,707 shares.

Given that the timing of this shift coincides with the implementation of the regulations, it is analyzed that speculative capital withdrawn from high-risk leverage products has bypassed into stock margin purchases.

In addition, expectations for the announcement of shareholder return policies estimated to reach up to 300 trillion won, along with news of the establishment of a global AI financing network worth 500 billion dollars, are further stimulating investor sentiment.

In the securities sector, it is evaluated that the earnings visibility of the two tech giants has become very high, driven by the recovery of competitiveness in high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) and long-term supply contracts.

As secondary regulations on single-stock leverage products, including pre-education and 5 hours of simulated trading, go into effect additionally starting today, forecasts suggest that the balloon effect away from leverage will accelerate further.

Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Design by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.