SEOUL, KOREA - The number of Korea's stock investors has shrunk for the first time in seven years. The Korea Exchange said on July 22 that the nation's investor numbers as of the end of 2012 were 5.02 million, down 5.1 percent from the previous year's 5.28 million. This is the first time since 2005 in which the number of investors has declined.

 

As for individual investors, the number as of the end of 2012 was 4.96 million, accounting for 19.7 percent of the economically active population. This is 1.5 percentage points lower than the previous year.

 

By market, the Korea Stock Exchange saw its market participant number fall 5.9 percent to 4.12 million. For the KOSDAQ market, the corresponding number was 2.36 million, down 1 percent from a year ago.

 

A Korea Exchange official said, "The shares in the Korea Stock Exchange are more vulnerable to external factors than those listed on KOSDAQ." Last year, individual investors net-sold 15.6 trillion won worth of shares in the Korea Stock Exchange while in KOSDAQ they net-bought shares worth 1.2 trillion won.