KOSDAQ ranks as world's top for profitability in Jan.: data

SEOUL, Feb. 1 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's secondary bourse was the world's most lucrative stock market in January, data showed Sunday, as investors flocked to the tech-rich index to minimize losses from currency risks and plunging oil prices.

In the month of January, the earnings rate of the secondary Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) came to 8.23 percent, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg.

The figure placed the KOSDAQ market as the best moneymaker among a total of 93 major stock exchange markets around the world in the one-month period, followed by India's BSE S&P Sensex Index with 8.08 percent and the Philippine Stock Exchange Index with 7.65 percent, according to the data.

The Seoul secondary bourse finished at 591.58 on Friday, up 8.95 percent compared to last year's closing price of 542.97. In contrast, the country's benchmark KOSPI moved up 1.8 percent over the same period.

Accordingly, the average daily turnover in the tech-laden bourse also shot up, standing at 2.8 trillion won (US$2.56 billion), more than twice the average of 1.1 trillion won per day recorded a year earlier.

Market watchers say more investors turned to the secondary KOSDAQ as a means to hedge risks stemming from adverse global business conditions and exchange rate issues, which can drag down large, export-oriented firms that are mostly listed on the country's representative KOSPI market.

The KOSDAQ trading board, benchmarked from the U.S-based NASDAQ, is centered on tech-related firms and game developers, including mobile messenger venture Daum Kakao Corp.

yjkim8826@yna.co.kr
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