The balance of credit transactions for stock investments, a representative indicator of debt-financed investing known as "bit-too," has dropped below 30 trillion won for the first time in about six months.

This is interpreted as individual investors reducing margin trading as the correction in the domestic stock market prolongs.

As of July 31, the margin trading balance stood at 28.9349 trillion won, falling below the 30 trillion won mark.

This is a sharp decrease of 3.2181 trillion won from the previous session.

This is the first time the balance has fallen below 30 trillion won since January 28 of this year (29.5961 trillion won) and marks the lowest level since January 22 (28.9257 trillion won).

It has plummeted by nearly 10 trillion won compared to June 24 (38.6328 trillion won), when it hit an all-time high.

It is the first time in the past year that the balance has decreased by more than 3 trillion won in a single day.

On July 31, the KOSPI skyrocketed by 17.91% to record its largest daily gain in history, but retail investors sold off a record 10.3834 trillion won.

In the main bourse, the margin trading balance decreased by 2.7 trillion won overnight to 22.8405 trillion won, while it was tallied at 6.0943 trillion won in the Kosdaq market.

While the margin trading balance usually increases on expectations of a bullish stock market, analysts suggest that as recent volatility expands and the KOSPI undergoes corrections, individual investors are cutting back on margin trading.

On the other hand, the amount of forced liquidation due to unpaid margin calls surged to the 100 billion won scale for the second consecutive day.

Undelivered margins from brokerage accounts, which represent ultra-short-term debt-financed investing borrowed from securities firms for two days, were tallied at 1.6614 trillion won on July 31.

The amount executed through forced liquidation because these margin calls were not paid reached 122 billion won.

Following the previous session on July 30 (103.7 billion won), it has remained in the 100 billion won range for two consecutive days.

The total amount of forced liquidation over the three days since July 29 (61.1 billion won) is approaching 300 billion won.

The amounts forcibly liquidated on July 27 and 28 were 22.9 billion won and 13.8 billion won, respectively.

The proportion of forced liquidations relative to unpaid margins also recorded 7.1%, remaining above 5% following July 29 (5.0%) and July 30 (8.6%).

(Photo: Yonhap News)