Bio, battery, and IT stocks were the biggest winners in the Korean market in the first half, with their market cap ballooning by more than 100 trillion won ($83.5 billion), while factory and bank categories lost big.

According to Korea Exchange on Sunday, Samsung Biologics Co., a biopharmaceutical business unit of Samsung Group, led the pack during the first six months as its market cap swelled by 79 percent or 22.63 trillion won from 28.65 trillion won in the end of 2019 to 51.28 trillion won as of June 30.

Celltrion, the nation’s top bio name, came second with a 77.8 percent or 18.06 trillion won gain. It was followed by tech giant Naver, which runs Korea’s biggest internet portal, with a 42.7 percent or 13.12 trillion won growth, battery maker LG Chem with 54.5 percent or 12.21 trillion won and the country’s biggest chat app operator Kakao with 77.5 percent or 10.25 trillion won.

The top 10 stocks saw their combined market cap surge 107.5 trillion won in the first half. They were mostly the so-called BBIG stocks – bio, battery, internet and game. On the other hand, the traditional high growth stocks including manufacturers and banks saw their market cap shriveling over the same period.

In the afternoon trading on Monday, Kakao and Naver gained 3.4 percent to 304,000 won and 2.52 percent to 284,000 won, respectively, while Samsung Biologics and Celltrion lost 1.82 percent to 757,000 won and 0.16 percent to 309,000 won, respectively.

By Shin Yoo-kyung and Choi Mira

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