10 Million Won Yields 8 Million Won Profit... What Is the Best Performing Asset?

[Anchor]

It is time for the Friendly Economy segment with reporter Han Jiyeon on this Monday. Han, I understand that KODEX 200 recorded the highest return on investment this year?

[Reporter]

Yes, an ETF tracking the KOSPI 200 surged over 80%, more than 40 times higher than preferential bank time deposits.

An 80% return means that if you had put 10 million won into KODEX 200 at the beginning of this year, your evaluation value before fees and taxes would have exceeded 18 million won.

An ETF is a product that bundles various stocks together for easy trading like regular stocks, and KODEX 200, which tracks the KOSPI 200 index as it is, is a representative example.

You can think of major stocks like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix all included here.

Since it is essentially investing in 200 representative stocks of our stock market all at once, it has risen by 80.76% since the beginning of the year alone.

However, back in July, the stock market fluctuated, causing the KOSPI 200 to drop by more than 20% from its peak.

Despite weathering that crisis, it managed to defend its top spot.

The difference becomes stark when compared to savings deposits.

The return rate for one-year time deposits at the five major banks stayed below 2%, stopping at 1.99% over the same period.

The KOSPI 200 ETF was a whopping 40 times higher than this.

However, unlike deposits, there is a risk of losing principal, and as mentioned earlier, it plummeted by more than 20% midway through.

[Anchor]

So crude oil prices came in as the second highest gainer.

[Reporter]

Crude oil took second place, rising by more than 67%, while gold, Bitcoin, and bonds declined.

The crude oil return was calculated based on West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, prices.

In third place were domestic active funds, where fund managers directly select and manage stocks, generating an average return of around 58%.

However, overseas stocks could not keep up with this pace.

The SPY ETF, which tracks the major U.S. index S&P 500, managed to rise by only 11% in dollar terms over the same period.

It can be said that the domestic stock market showed unusual strength this year.

Conversely, some assets suffered losses.

Gold, often called a safe asset, dropped by about 2.6%, and Bitcoin fell by more than 10%.

This contrasts sharply with the massive surge in domestic stocks this year.

Bonds also recorded negative figures.

The bond index, which calculates both interest and price fluctuations together, dropped by 3.77%.

In the foreign exchange market, the Korean won showed strength, causing the won-dollar exchange rate to fall by about 4.6%.

As much as the exchange rate dropped, the burden of overseas travel or direct overseas purchases decreased slightly.

This means people could buy more dollars than at the beginning of the year with the same amount of won.

[Anchor]

Lastly, we have news regarding corporate earnings forecasts.

[Reporter]

More than half of the surveyed listed companies saw their earnings expectations rise, while others actually dropped.

A financial information provider compiled and aggregated forecasts from securities firms.

The company that improved the most was Samsung SDI.

Its forecast skyrocketed more than eightfold in just three months.

This was driven by strong performance in the energy storage system business, plus compensation paid by a finished car manufacturer for failing to meet battery purchase commitments.

The second was game developer Com2uS, where expectations nearly quintupled thanks to the box-office success of its new release.

On the flip side, Intekplus saw the steepest deterioration, with its outlook plunging nearly 95% as semiconductor equipment sales fell short of expectations, and LGும் (LG Chem) also saw its expectations lowered by over 60%.

Looking at major stocks, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix saw slight increases, whereas Hyundai Motor, batteries, and biotech sectors faced lowered expectations.

Still, because major semiconductor stocks are so massive, the total earnings forecasts for all surveyed listed companies combined are projected to increase by about 4%.

Some analysts suggest that companies with raised expectations have a high probability of delivering an "earnings surprise" with better-than-expected results during future earnings announcements.

Although the exchange rate dropped significantly, there was no clear trend of it dragging down earnings outlooks.

Experts viewed sector-specific conditions as more important than exchange rates.

In particular, they analyzed that it is worth paying attention to undervalued sectors relative to their performance, such as semiconductors, shipbuilding, and defense.

However, these are merely forecasts from securities firms, and actual announcement results may vary.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.