As Korea's stock market surged to record levels last year and a rally unfolded, the value of stocks held by underage investors jumped as well. The value of stocks held by underage investors was found to be close to 3 trillion won.
According to the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) securities information portal SEIBro on the 26th, as of the end of last year, underage (under 20) shareholders at 88 companies—among the top 200 listed firms by market capitalization that disclose shareholder data by age—totaled 728,344. The average number of underage shareholders per listed company was 8,277.
Reflecting stock prices at the end of last year, the value of top market-cap listed shares held by underage shareholders was estimated at about 2.9761 trillion won.
Compared with 2024, the "stock holdings" of underage shareholders decreased, but as share prices soared, the "holding value" appears to have increased sharply.
The number of underage shareholders and the number of shares they held per listed company declined. The number of underage shareholders fell from 8,466 to 8,277, and the number of shares held decreased from about 400,000 to 370,000. However, the value of holdings per listed company for underage shareholders rose sharply from about 19.6 billion won to 33.8 billion won.
Samsung Electronics has the most underage shareholders among listed firms. At the end of last year, Samsung Electronics had 343,694 underage shareholders. That was down about 13% from 394,886 in 2024. The number of Samsung Electronics shares held by underage investors also fell 17% to 16,063,292 from 19,402,718 a year earlier.
However, as the share price jumped from 53,200 won to 119,900 won, the average value of Samsung Electronics holdings per underage investor more than doubled, from around 2.61 million won to around 5.6 million won.
As the KOSPI, which had long been stuck in a box range, climbed 76% over the course of last year, profit-taking demand appeared. There also seems to have been an effect from individual investors selling single names and shifting funds into exchange-traded funds (ETF).
According to the Korea Exchange (KRX) information data system, individual investors recorded net sales of a total 19.2644 trillion won across the KOSPI, KOSDAQ, and KONEX markets over the course of last year.