Lee Yeon-woo is a financial journalist at The Korea Times. Her wide range of reporting includes policies, macroeconomics, stock market, companies and even crypto. She is passionate about connecting the dots in Korean finance and making it easier for foreign nationals to understand. Based on her previous experience as a national reporter, she also has a keen interest in social issues within the sector, including gender equality and ESG. Your tips and insights are always appreciated. You can send them to yanu@koreatimes.co.kr.
Only 2 out of 10 retail investors make gains: survey
gettyimagesbank
By Lee Yeon-woo
Many office workers feel they are addicted to stock investing
By Lee Yeon-woo
Only twenty percent of stock investors were successful in making profits, a recent survey on office workers showed. One in five regarded themselves as a “stock investment addict” and more than half of the respondents spent time checking stock indices during their work hours.
Job search portal Incruit surveyed 820 office workers from March 30 to April 3 and found that 86.1 percent of the respondents said they purchased stocks this year, investing an average of 15.5 percent of their personal assets.
They, however, were not very successful in making profits. Only 15 percent reported making a profit, while 35.1 percent said they had not made or lost money yet. Nearly half of the respondents, or 49.9 percent, said they lost money in the stock market.
Despite the poor earnings performance, some stock investors saw themselves as being addicted to the market. When asked if they considered themselves to be addicted to stocks, 17.4 percent of the respondents answered "generally yes" and 3.5 percent answered "very much yes."
Office workers tend to check the prices of their stocks during work hours. According to the survey, 51.6 percent of the respondents said they do that “often,” while 13.3 percent said they do so “very frequently.”
Furthermore, 76.9 percent of the respondents said they bought or sold stocks during work hours, with 64.4 percent reporting that they do so often.
Regarding investment options other than stocks, "savings accounts and time deposits" were the most common at 57.3 percent, followed by "real estate investment" at 12.7 percent, and "cryptocurrency" at 11.3 percent.