(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, March 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of stock investors jumped nearly 49 percent in 2020 from a year earlier amid a bullish market run, industry data showed Tuesday.
A total of 9.19 million investors held shares in 2,352 companies listed on the country’s main and secondary bourses, up 48.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository.
Those investors owned a combined 99.1 billion shares, with per-capita holdings standing at 10,779 shares.
Retail investors in those firms closing their books in December numbered 9.1 million, or 99.1 percent of the total. Local corporate investors came to 31,000, with foreign individuals and corporations reaching 22,000.
The number of companies listed on the main KOSPI market came to 774 last year, down 0.6 percent from the prior year, but the number of investors in those firms spiked 59 percent to 7.84 million.
The number of firms registered with the tech-heavy KOSAQ market gained 4.7 percent to 1,440, with the number of investors jumping 54.7 percent to 5.43 million.
By company, investors holding shares in top-cap Samsung Electronics Co. were the largest at 2.96 million, followed by No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. with slightly over 690,000, according to the data.
(Yonhap)
