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A RECORD WEEK FOR VOLATILITY IN SEOUL

Korean stocks are heading towards their most volatile week on record..KS11. The KOSPI has been on a well-documented roller-coaster this year. Having doubled in value on a year-to-date basis last week, it has since lost around 15%, dropping as much as 8% on one day only to rise 8% the next.

A measure of Korean equity market volatility - Seoul's version of the VIX index - .KSVKOSPI hit a record 91.23 on Tuesday. It's since eased back to 87.3, but it started the year around 30 and only ever went as high as 39 during the April 2025 tariff turmoil.

Even the CBOE VIX .VIX index, which tracks S&P 500 options volatility, has not hit 90 in its history, while Europe's STOXX 50 volatility index .V2TX has only ever managed that once, in March 2020.

Foreigners have cooled towards Seoul market, which is dominated by SK Hynix and Samsung, in the last few weeks, so it's domestic retail investors that are dealing with the near-daily booms and busts in the index.

They're also heavily leveraged, meaning there is a great risk of more forced selling if the market moves against them. Margin loans - a type of secured loan that brokers offer that makes it possible for investors to borrow against their securities holdings - hit a record 38.02 trillion won ($24.85 billion) in late May. They have since come back to around 36.8 trillion won. That is still pretty much double what it was a year ago, according to data from the Korean Financial Investment Association.

(Amanda Cooper)

($1 = 1,530.1800 won)

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EARLIER ON LIVE MARKETS:

FRIDAY'S TECH SELLOFF VS TUESDAY'S CLICK HERE

POSITIVE START (CLICK HERE)

EUROPE BEFORE THE BELL: NOT YOUR EVERYDAY CEASEFIRE (CLICK HERE)

TECH AND WAR JITTERS SAP CONFIDENCE (CLICK HERE)