◆Major News from Ajou Economy
▷Seven out of ten domestic stocks lost value in July; what to expect in August?
- As of the end of last month, investor deposits and margin loan balances have sharply decreased. Analysts suggest that the market's strength is rapidly weakening due to the exit of waiting funds and the liquidation of over 3 trillion won in margin loans overnight.
- According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, as of July 31, investor deposits (excluding deposits for trading in derivatives) totaled 104.1354 trillion won. This marks a decrease of 15.9483 trillion won (13.3%) compared to early July (120.8367 trillion won). Compared to the record high of 139.6948 trillion won on June 4, nearly 35.5594 trillion won (25.5%) has evaporated in less than two months.
- The liquidation of leveraged funds has also intensified. As of July 31, the total balance of margin trading loans was 28.935 trillion won, plummeting by 3.2181 trillion won (10%) in just one day from the previous day (32.1531 trillion won). The margin balance, which reached 37.7922 trillion won at the beginning of July, has fallen to the 20 trillion won range after 8.8572 trillion won was repaid over the month.
- By market, as of July 31, 2.6681 trillion won in margin balances disappeared in the securities market in one day, while 550.1 billion won vanished in the KOSDAQ market. This was a result of forced sell-offs due to increased stock price volatility and a surge in stop-loss repayments to prevent further losses.
- The high-risk trading indicator, margin trading receivables, recorded 1.6615 trillion won, with actual forced sell-off amounts reaching 122 billion won, indicating that the forced sell-off ratio was 7.1% of the receivables.
◆Key Reports
▷U.S.: Most uncertainty factors fueling interest rate hikes have already been revealed [KB Securities]
- Demand for funds in the U.S. is outpacing supply, putting consistent upward pressure on interest rates in the long term.
- The significantly increased demand for funds in the U.S. is driven not only by government fiscal spending but also by major tech companies raising capital for AI infrastructure.
- Given that AI is a key front in the competition for dominance, it is unlikely that the Federal Reserve will intentionally choose to suppress this demand through tightening measures.
- The U.S. is in a position of spending money on AI investments, and as large corporations increase their investments, the taxable profits subject to corporate tax decrease. Customs revenue is also likely to remain low for the time being.
- Therefore, during monetary tightening, it will be difficult for fiscal policy to compensate for the burden, making actual interest rate hikes more cautious.
◆Major Announcements After Market Close (3rd)
▷SK decided on an interim dividend of 1,500 won per share, totaling 82.6 billion won.
▷Korea Credit Information, decided on a quarterly dividend of 250 won per common share, totaling 3.5 billion won.
▷Hyundai FutureNet decided to acquire 1.18 million shares of its own common stock.
▷Exem decided on a stock consolidation, increasing the par value from 100 won to 500 won.
▷Celltrion applied for a change in the clinical trial plan for CT-P44 in Korea.
◆Fund Trends (as of July 31, excluding ETFs)
Domestic equity funds: 55.7 billion won
Overseas equity funds: -14.6 billion won
◆Today's Schedule (Tuesday)
Korea: Consumer Price Index (July)
U.S.: Export-Import Statistics (June), Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) (June)
* This article has been translated by AI.
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