The Korea Stock Exchange Composite Kospi, the bellwether of the country’s bourse, was the second-best performing market index in the G20 countries after being hit by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Korea Exchange said Sunday that the Kospi gained 64.42 percent from the lowest point of this year to last Friday, making it the second-highest growth only after Argentina that record a 107.54 percent rise.

The growth pace of the Kospi was faster than advanced markets such as Germany whose growth reached 56.4 percent, Japan with 41.4 percent and France 34.07 percent, and even surpassed those of emerging markets including Brazil with 54.73 percent, India 49.55 percent and Russia 46.96 percent.

The sharp rebound was driven by the buying spree of retail investors who gobbled up local shares on speculative bets on quick recovery from the viral impact. Individual investors net bought a whopping 25.76 trillion won ($21.75 billion) of local shares from March 19 when the Kospi market tanked to the lowest levels.

By Hong Hye-jin and Choi Mira

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