In March 2020, the COVID-19 virus spread worldwide, which paralyzed the world's stock market. After the sharp rise of the stock market, and individual investment has been rising in South Korea. Then, what made people start stock trading?

South Korean research team had a survey of 1,000 people who were over 18 years to investigate the behavior of the individual stock trading in South Korea. According to this survey, 41 percent of men, and 29 percent of women participants answered that they started an individual investment in 2020 when the COVID-19 virus spread widely over South Korea. Also, 90 percent of the participants who started stock trading answered that they would continue doing it.

▲ Increase of Individual Investors in South Korea

The main reason of this phenomenon is the COVID-19 virus. After the virus stopped the society of South Korea, many people could not find a way to increase their assets. To solve that problem, the government released the budget to the stock market, which made people get interested in stock trading. The problem is, that 48 percent of the participants of the survey answered that they could evaluate their knowledge about stock trading as low. This problem could affect badly to people who just started stock trading. Furthermore, 27 percent of the individual investors in South Korea are doing the 'Lever Investment', which is an investment method to invest more than the principal by using their debts to the investment. This method is very risky than the other methods of investment.

▲ Lever Investment

Since the COVID-19 has changed our society, stock trading has become one of the biggest issues for the people in South Korea. Because of that, the marketing profit of Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) has risen up over two times. However, economy professionals suggest to many people who have just started stock trading not to invest more than their actual principal.

▲ KOSDAQ Rising over 1,000

2021/08/14 By Jeon Seung Hyun