Employees monitor stock markets and exchange rates at Hana Bank's headquarters in Seoul on Friday. [Yonhap]
Employees monitor stock markets and exchange rates at Hana Bank's headquarters in Seoul on Friday. [Yonhap]

Retail investors net-sold about 500 billion won worth of 14 single-stock leveraged products over three consecutive sessions — Tuesday through Thursday — only to pour roughly 450 billion won ($306 million) back into the same instruments in a single day on Friday.

According to Korea Exchange and Koscom CHECK data released Sunday, retail investors were net sellers of all 14 single-stock leveraged products for three straight sessions from Tuesday through Thursday.

Breaking down the daily figures, the seven Samsung Electronics single-stock leveraged products saw retail net selling of 57.64 billion won on Tuesday, 76.95 billion won on Wednesday and 24.25 billion won on Thursday. Over the same period, the seven SK Hynix single-stock leveraged products recorded net selling of 162.16 billion won, 45.79 billion won and 180.37 billion won, respectively. Combined net selling across all 14 products totaled 547.17 billion won over the three days.

That selling streak reversed sharply on Friday. In that single session, retail investors net-bought 103.81 billion won of the seven Samsung Electronics single-stock leveraged products and 350.03 billion won of the seven SK Hynix single-stock leveraged products.Combined, retail investors snapped up 453.84 billion won worth of Samsung and SK Hynix single-stock leveraged products on Friday alone.

The buying came even as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix closed down 7 to 8 percent on Friday, dragging their single-stock leveraged products down 15 to 16 percent. The flagship KODEX Samsung Electronics Single-Stock Leverage product fell 15.10 percent and the SK Hynix Single-Stock Leverage product dropped 16.25 percent. The TIGER Samsung Electronics Single-Stock Leverage and TIGER SK Hynix Leverage products declined 15.39 percent and 16.17 percent, respectively. As a result, 13 of the 14 products — all except KODEX SK Hynix Single-Stock Leverage, which closed at 13,015 won — fell to the 11,000–12,000 won range, roughly half their listing price of 20,000 won on May 27.

The sharp price declines appear to have drawn bargain hunters back into the market. Analysts also note that demand for so-called averaging down — buying more of a losing position to lower the average cost — may have been spurred by investors rushing to act before tighter regulations take effect, as a planned increase in the minimum deposit requirement is set to be introduced Thursday.The Financial Services Commission decided to bring forward the tightened minimum deposit requirement to Thursday to quickly stabilize demand.


keg@heraldcorp.com