Kosdaq's trading value hit an 11-month low. Kospi's rally on record chip exports didn't change that.

By Mia Park · Korea Desk · July 21, 2026, 7:36 PM ET

Key points

Kosdaq's daily trading value fell to 4.83 trillion won (about $3.2 billion) on July 20, its lowest level in about 11 months.
That is down 54.9% from 10.70 trillion won just a month earlier, and down 68.4% since single-stock leverage ETFs launched May 27.
Kospi rose 3.56% Tuesday on record semiconductor exports, but Kosdaq only crept up 0.49%, proof the rally barely touched smaller stocks.
Turnover on Kosdaq shares fell from 2.51% to 1.14% in a month; one analyst calls it the market's "greatest neglect since it opened."

Kospi closed up 3.56% on Tuesday, its first real bounce after posting the worst one-month drop of any major market a day earlier, driven by record semiconductor export data. Kosdaq, the exchange next door for Korea's smaller and growth companies, only crept up 0.49% the same day, a small difference that hides the real story. Kosdaq's daily trading value just fell to its lowest level in about 11 months, and Tuesday's rally did nothing to reverse that.

The number that matters more than the index

Kosdaq traded just 4.83 trillion won on July 20, close to $3.2 billion. It was the exchange's second straight session under 5 trillion won, and Korean financial media said trading value had never been this low all year. On June 19, Kosdaq was still moving 10.70 trillion won a day (about $7.1 billion), more than double today's figure. That's a 54.9% drop in a single month.

Widen the window and the picture gets worse. May 27 was the day Korea's single-stock leverage ETFs launched, and Kosdaq was still trading 15.28 trillion won that day, roughly $10.2 billion. Measured from there, trading value is down 68.4%. You would have to go back almost a full year, to August 28 of last year, to find another day this quiet, when trading value was 4.68 trillion won, about $3.1 billion.

Turnover fell faster than prices did

The index and the broader market lost value over that same month too, just not as fast. Kosdaq itself fell 22.4%, from 966.59 to 749.64, and the exchange's total market value slid a similar 22.6%, from 542.8 trillion won down to 420.2 trillion won, or about $361.9 billion down to $280.1 billion. Daily share volume collapsed even harder, down 57%, from 1.229 million shares to 528,000, and turnover, the share of a stock's float that changes hands in a day, was roughly cut in half over the same stretch, from 2.51% to 1.14%.

That difference between the price decline and the trading decline is the real story. A stock can lose a fifth of its value in a rough month and still have plenty of buyers and sellers showing up for it. On Kosdaq, both the value and the number of people willing to trade it shrank together.

Where the money went instead

Yoon Jae-hong, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, described it as Kosdaq facing "the greatest neglect since market opening" relative to Kospi. His explanation ties back to a story this site has covered before. Earnings gains this year have concentrated almost entirely in a handful of semiconductor large caps like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and trading activity followed the money into the leverage ETFs built around those two stocks. Individual investors specifically kept pulling back from Kosdaq, which Yoon says makes this downturn different from past corrections. He added that regulating the single-stock leverage products further could ease part of the imbalance, but that Kosdaq will likely need its own activation policy to actually bring investors back.

Tuesday's rally didn't change the pattern

If Tuesday's export-driven rally had been about Korean stocks broadly, Kosdaq should have been part of it, since smaller, more domestically exposed companies are usually the first to catch up in a genuine broad-based bounce. Instead, Kospi's 3.56% rise stayed almost entirely on the exchange with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, while Kosdaq gained 3.70 points, 0.49%, to close at 753.34. The rally was real. It just was not a Kosdaq rally.

Why this matters beyond one bad trading day

This site already reported that roughly 307 Kosdaq companies are sitting inside delisting-risk territory, under a rule that tracks whether a stock can climb back above 1,000 won or 20 billion won (about $13.3 million) in market cap. A thin, shrinking market makes climbing back over those lines harder for every company near the edge, since a stock needs real buying to move, not just to be worth more on paper. Kosdaq's liquidity problem and its delisting problem are the same problem, viewed from two different angles.

Sources

Figures are from South Korean market reporting as described above, converted to US dollars at roughly 1,500 won to the dollar. This is general information about market conditions, not investment advice.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Kosdaq's trading value fall to an 11-month low?

Kosdaq traded just 4.83 trillion won, about $3.2 billion, worth of shares on July 20, 2026, the exchange's lowest daily trading value in about 11 months. An analyst at Mirae Asset Securities attributes it to earnings gains concentrating almost entirely in semiconductor large caps like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, pulling trading activity and individual investors away from smaller Kosdaq names.

How much has Kosdaq's trading value dropped since the leverage ETF rules changed?

Trading value is down 68.4% from the 15.28 trillion won, about $10.2 billion, Kosdaq traded on May 27, 2026, the day Korea's single-stock leverage ETFs launched. It is also down 54.9% from just a month earlier, June 19, when trading value was 10.70 trillion won, about $7.1 billion.

Did Kosdaq join Kospi's rally on July 21, 2026?

Barely. Kospi rose 3.56% that day on record semiconductor export data, but Kosdaq gained just 0.49%, closing at 753.34. Smaller, more domestically exposed companies would typically be the first to catch up in a genuine broad-based rally, and that did not happen here.

Is Kosdaq's shrinking trading volume linked to its delisting risk problem?

Yes. Roughly 307 Kosdaq companies are already sitting inside delisting-risk territory, needing their share price or market cap to climb back above set thresholds. A thin, shrinking market makes that harder for every company near the edge, since a stock needs real buying activity to move, not just to be worth more on paper.

Mia Park · Korea Desk

Mia Park was born and raised in Korea and covers its markets and news for AIStockWire, from the Kospi to Samsung and SK Hynix. She got her start writing for a Korean entertainment blog, a long way from stock filings, but she has always liked knowing what is happening back home before anyone else does.