Stock Futures Trading Surges 128% on Year in March
Korea Exchange announced on May 31 that the total stock futures trading volume was 73,931.4 billion won in March this year, up 127.7 percent from a year ago. That month, the number of stock futures contracts was 136.81 million, up 137.1 percent from a year earlier. In addition, the number increased 19.92 percent year on year to 75.5 million in April this year.
Institutional investors’ ratio in the stock futures market increased from 30 percent to 34 percent from April 2019 to April 2020. The ratio of foreign investors, which are continuing to sell in the spot market, edged up to 47 percent. Their investment amounts increased along with the overall size of the stock futures market. According to market experts, foreign investors are actively participating in the market, while reducing their participation in the spot market, with regard to recent volatility expansion and the recently implemented short selling ban.
After the South Korean stock market plunged early this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the local financial authorities implemented the six-month ban for every listed stock on March 16. “It seems that foreign and institutional investors, which used short selling as hedging means, shifted to the stock futures market,” an analyst explained.