"The Younger, the More Overseas Investments"... 20s Put 60% of Funds Abroad

[Financial News] New analysis shows that people in their 20s tend to invest more in overseas stocks than in domestic ones. In particular, overseas exchange-traded products (ETPs), including Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), accounted for as much as 60% of their portfolios.
According to the Korea Capital Market Institute on the 10th, individual investors held an average of 5.92 securities products per day, of which 4.91 were domestic stocks. By age group, the average number of domestic stocks held was 3.12 for those in their 20s, 4.30 for those in their 30s, 5.34 for those in their 40s, 5.41 for those in their 50s, and 5.10 for those in their 60s.
Domestic stocks made up 72.6% of the total number of securities held by investors in their 20s, while the figure reached 90.9% for those in their 60s, indicating that older investors are more heavily concentrated in domestic shares.
The average daily holding amount for all individual investors was about 51.96 million won, with domestic stocks accounting for 33.18 million won, or 63.9% of the total. However, by age group, overseas ETPs represented 60% of the total investment amount for investors in their 20s, nearly twice the share of domestic stocks at 30.8%. Investors in their 30s also allocated 45.5% of their total investment to overseas ETPs.
Looking at the number of securities products held by asset size, investors with larger assets held more positions. Investors with 5 million won or less had an average of 2.7 holdings per day, while those with more than 300 million won held 12.9. For investors with 100 million won or less, domestic stocks made up a dominant 83–85% of their portfolios, but this share fell to 69.7% for those with more than 300 million won.
Kang So-hyun, a researcher at the Korea Capital Market Institute, stated, "We need to increase the use of long-term diversified investment accounts and strengthen tax incentives that favor long-term investing, while at the same time tightening oversight of the product structure, disclosure, and sales practices of high-risk products such as leveraged and inverse ETFs."


dschoi@fnnews.com Choi Doo-seon Reporter