Foreigners celebrated the lifting of 14-month ban on short sale in Seoul, accounting for nearly 90 percent of total short sales on the first day with tripled turnover compared with the daily average in 2019.

According to Korea Exchange on Tuesday, short sale turnover on the main Kospi and secondary Kosdaq markets totaled 1.09 trillion won ($971.6 million) on Monday, when short sale became permitted for large-cap stocks on the Kospi 200 and Kosdaq 150 indexes after the practice was suspended from March last year.

On the Kospi, the turnover was 814 billion won involving 18.5 million shares.

Foreigners were behind the bulk 738.2 billion won, followed by institutional investors 63.6 billion won, and individuals 13.2 billion won.

In the secondary Kosdaq market, shorting turnover was valued at 279 billion won involving 9.68 million shares. Foreigners took up 217.6 billion won, institutional investors 56.5 billion won, and retail investors 4.9 billion won.

Foreigners accounted for 87 percent of total 1.09 trillion won shorted bids on the two markets on Monday.

The daily volume was 2.6 times higher than 420.7 billion won daily average in 2019.

Daily transactions during 10-day daily average before March last year averaged 861 billion won, 27 percent lower than Monday’s total.

Compared with 2019 average, transactions by individual and foreign investors jumped 279.2 percent and 262 percent, respectively, while those by institutional investors fell 21.6 percent. Compared with 10-day trading average in March last year, transactions by individuals and foreigners more than doubled while those by institutional investors fell by a third.

Celltrion suffered the most from shorting on Monday with 71 billion won worth of its shares shorted, followed by LG Display with 49.1 billion won, Shin Poong Pharm with 29.1 billion won, Seegene with 28.9 billion won, LG Chem with 27.8 billion won, HMM with 23.1 billion won, and Kumho Petrochemical with 21.8 billion won.

Samsung Card became another short favorite with 56.45 percent of its total share trading accounted for short selling, 46.06 percent for Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance, 41.56 percent for Dawonsys, and 38.34 percent for NKMax.

The Kospi 200 closed Tuesday 0.76 percent higher at 423.57 and Kosdaq 150 up 0.91 percent at 1,374.04. The broader Kospi finished up 0.64 percent at 3,147.37 and Kosdaq 0.56 percent higher at 967.20.

By Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]