Post-bubble, South Korean stocks offer investor value

Article Excerpt

From its bottom in March 2020 until mid-2021, the Korea Exchange advanced 120% on the back of a retail trading frenzy. Retail investors (locally known as “ants”) became large-scale participants in Korean stocks. Social media played a large role in fuelling speculative trading activities. Large, global companies such as Samsung, Posco, LG Electronics, Hynix, and Hyundai performed well, but the speculators’ favourites such as Kakao and Seegene rose between 450% and 1,200%. But all speculative bubbles eventually burst. When we last wrote about this in September 2022 we commented on the sharp declines in the prices of not only the speculative stocks but also stocks that represent highly rated Korean companies. For example, Samsung Electronics, one of the top global consumer electronics and semiconductor manufacturers, saw a share price decline of 40%, while the price of semiconductor producer SK Hynix declined 49%. We pointed to both of these very low valuations at that time. Since then, Samsung has risen by 67% (although it recently fell…