Retail Investors Still Flock to Flagging Bourse

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index plunged 25 percent and the junior Kosdaq 35 percent in 2022, but the number of small shareholders in listed companies rose 4.1 percent to more than 14 million.

The most popular stock remained Samsung Electronics, whose small stockholders mushroomed 14 percent to 6 million.

According to the Korea Securities Depository, 14.41 million Koreans held shares in 2,509 listed companies as of the end of last year. Some 14.24 million of them were retail investors, up 3.6 percent. On average they owned stocks in 5.85 companies, down 1.8 percent from 2021, while the total number of shares per investor edged down 0.8 percent to 7,688.

On the KOSPI the number of shareholders increased 4.4 percent to 12.88 million, while the number fell 0.5 percent on the Kosdaq to 7.87 million.

Retail investors accounted for the vast majority or 98.8 percent at 14.24 million, while 0.3 percent or 43,000 were institutional investors and 0.2 percent or 33,000 foreigners. Retail investors owned 56.1 billion shares but accounted for only 50.7 percent of total outstanding stocks.

Samsung Electronics was the most widely held stock with 6.39 million shareholders. Next were Kakao (2.06 million) and Hyundai Motor (1.2 million). Samsung's stock value plunged around 30 percent last year to W55,000 per share, but the number of shareholders jumped 13.6 percent (US$1=W1,302). 

By gender, 52.2 percent of retail investors or 7.43 million were men, but they owned 71.1 percent or 39.9 billion shares, which was more than twice as much as the 16.2 billion held by women. By age, investors in their 50s were the largest group with 34.2 percent.

Investors were concentrated in Gyeonggi Province with 26.3 percent or 3.79 million shareholders, while investors in Seoul had the biggest number of shares with 61.9 billion stocks or 55.9 percent.