Individual Investors Prefer Large-cap Stocks
Financial data provider FnGuide said on Jan. 21 that the combined market capitalization of the 59 listed subsidiaries of Samsung, SK, LG and Hyundai Motor Groups reached 1,238.13 trillion won on Jan. 20, it increased by no less than 59 percent from Jan. 1, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2021, and the top four South Korean conglomerates’ proportion in KOSPI rose from 55 percent to 60 percent in that period.
The market cap rapidly increased this month in particular. Specifically, it increased 129.68 trillion won for the first 20 days of this month after having increased 330.77 trillion won in 2020 as a whole.
The market cap of the 16 listed subsidiaries of Samsung Group was 729.82 trillion won, up 53 percent from the end of 2019. Samsung Electronics’ increased 187.04 trillion won to 520.57 trillion won and Samsung Biologics and Samsung SDI almost doubled theirs to over 50 trillion won each.
The 18 listed subsidiaries of SK Group recorded 194.88 trillion won, followed by LG Group (162.31 trillion won) and Hyundai Motor Group (151.1225 trillion won).
The market cap of SK Group increased by more than 65 trillion won with that of SK Hynix going up from 68 trillion won to 95 trillion won. SK Biopharmaceuticals (11.59 trillion won) went public last year, SK Innovation almost doubled its figure, and SK Chemicals’ stock price almost quintupled.
The 13 listed subsidiaries of LG Group increased their market cap by 92 percent to 162.31 trillion won. LG Chem’s jumped from 22 trillion won to over 70 trillion won, LG Electronics’ more than doubled from 11.8 trillion won to 27.33 trillion won, and those of LG Display, Silicon Works and LG International rose 31 percent, 88 percent and 86 percent, respectively. As a result, LG Group ranked third among the four by outdoing Hyundai Motor Group, which has 12 listed subsidiaries.
Their combined market cap increased 72 percent to 151.12 trillion won. Especially, the figure increased 36.53 trillion won this month alone whereas the amount of increase was 26.63 trillion won last year.
The aggregate market value of Hyundai Motor Company jumped from 25 trillion won to 55 trillion won and that of Kia Motors almost doubled from 18 trillion won to 35 trillion won. Hyundai Mobis reached 32 trillion won with a rate of increase of approximately 33 percent.