Electronic signboards at a Hana Bank dealing room in Seoul show the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed at 2,687.45 points on May 2, 2022, down 7.6 points or 0.28 percent from the previous session’s close. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s major listed companies remain undervalued compared with their global peers as their share prices slump despite a jump in earnings, data showed Tuesday.
The price-earnings ratio (PER) of stocks listed on the KOSPI market had come to 11.1 as of Monday, sharply down from 26 a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Exchange.
The PER, which serves as the yardstick for valuing a company, gauges its current share price relative to its earnings per share. The latest figure reflects their financial statements as of the fourth quarter of 2021.
The bourse operator said listed firms’ average PER more than halved as their share prices inched down amid a spike in their 2021 net profit.
The combined net income of those listed companies rose nearly 2.3 times over the cited period, but their total market value fell 2.7 percent.
The bourse operator said the average PER of KOSPI 200 firms had stood at 9.8 as of Monday, lower than the average reading of 18.4 for advanced markets and the median number of 12.3 for emerging markets.
Among the 50 top-cap firms, Samsung Biologics Co, the biotech arm of South Korea’s Samsung Group, posted the highest PER of 142.5, followed by battery material maker EcoPro BM and leading battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd. with 103.1.
Meanwhile, the price-to-book value ratio of South Korea’s main bourse, calculated by dividing a stock’s market cap by the book value, dropped to 1.1 from 1.3 over the cited period.
(Yonhap)
