Block Sales Sharply Increased
The amount of stock sales through block deals on South Korean bourses increased sharply in 2017 from a year earlier. In particular, the KOSPI showed more than 30 percent growth.
According to the Korea Exchange (KRX) on January 22, the amount of stock sales through block deals on the KOSPI main bourse surged to 55.1 trillion won (US$51.61 billion) last year, up 37 percent from the previous year.
By kind of block deals, about 8.9 trillion won (US$8.34 billion) worth of stocks were sold in block deals before the market opened, while 46.7 trillion won (US$43.74 billion) worth of stocks were sold after the market closed and 10.5 trillion won (US$9.84 billion) were sold after the market opened. The ratio of stock deals after the market closed is on the fall, while that of stock deals after the market opened is on the rise.
The KODEX 200, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that compiles the top 200 firms listed on the KOSPI bourse, topped the list of the trading volume through block deals on the KOSPI at 16.9 trillion won (US$15.83 billion) last year. Samsung Electronics Co. came in second at 6 trillion won (US$5.62 billion), followed by the Tiger200 Healthcare fund at 2 trillion won (US$1.87 billion), the KODEX KOSDAQ 150 at 1.9 trillion won (US$1.78 billion), Naver Corp. at 1.8 trillion won (US$1.69 billion), Shinhan Financial Group at 1.4 trillion won (US$1.31 billion) and AmorePacific at 1.3 trillion won (US$1.22 billion).
On the tech-heavy secondary KOSDAQ market, the amount of block deals surged to 3.4 trillion won (US$3.19 billion) last year, up 21.7 percent from the previous year. Kakao Corp. ranked first in terms of the trading volume through block deals on the KOSDAQ market at 370 billion won (US$346.54 million) before transferring to the KOSPI in July 2017, followed by Celltrion Inc. at 131.7 billion won (US$123.35 million) and GS Home Shopping Inc. at 119.1 billion won (US$111.55 million).