With the stock market booming, Nextrade’s average daily turnover tops 20 trillion won

[The Financial News] Nextrade, the country’s first alternative trading system launched in March last year, has seen its average daily trading value exceed 20 trillion won for the first time on record.
According to Nextrade on the 2nd, the combined average daily trading value of its pre-market, main session, and after-market in January came to 20.3504 trillion won.
This represents a sharp increase of 187.24% from the previous month’s 7.0848 trillion won, marking the first time that the monthly average daily turnover has broken the 20 trillion won mark. Even compared with last October, when trading was the heaviest at 13.3158 trillion won, the figure is up 52.83%.
The share of the pre-market, which operates before the regular session (8:00 a.m.–8:50 a.m.), and the after-market, which runs after the close (3:40 p.m.–8:00 p.m.), has also increased. In January, the average daily trading value of the pre- and after-markets reached 7.9401 trillion won, another all-time high. Their share of the overall market rose to 39.02%, up from 35.83% a month earlier.
After its launch, Nextrade’s average daily trading value first surpassed 10 trillion won in June last year. It then retreated to the 7–8 trillion won range between July and September, climbed back above 10 trillion won in October, but slipped again to the 7 trillion won level in December.
The decline in December was largely due to a reduction in the number of listed names caused by the so-called "15% rule." Under the Enforcement Decree of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, the average daily trading volume on an alternative trading system over the past six months cannot exceed 15% of the volume on the Korea Exchange (KRX). In fact, the number of securities traded on Nextrade fell sharply from 794 at the end of March last year to 622 at the end of December.
Nextrade has continued to trim the number of tradable securities this year as it seeks to manage trading volume. For the first quarter, Nextrade designated 700 securities—375 from the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and 325 from the KOSDAQ market—as eligible for trading, but the actual number being traded is lower. On the 9th, for example, only 681 securities changed hands in the pre-market.
Despite the rapid run-up in domestic share prices, analysts expect the rally to continue. Lee Young-won, a researcher at Heungkuk Securities, said, "The domestic stock market is still valued lower than global markets," adding, "If discount factors are resolved and the valuation gap narrows to more normal levels, there is room for further upside."
In particular, expectations are rising for growth in the KOSDAQ market, which lagged behind the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) last year. Kwon Beom-seok, a researcher at Samsung Securities, noted, "As the government’s policy pledge of KOSPI 5,000 has effectively materialized, expectations for KOSDAQ 3,000 are spreading," and added, "Net purchases of KOSDAQ shares by institutional investors reached about 6.6 trillion won over the three trading days from January 26 to 28, the largest amount on record."

jisseo@fnnews.com Seo Min-ji Reporter