No. of top listed firms drops 7% in July

By Lee Kyung-min

The number of listed firms with over a 1 trillion won ($845 million) market capitalization decreased by 7 percent in July from a month earlier, amid weak investment sentiment further dampened by the fresh trade dispute between Korea and Japan, data showed Wednesday.

According to the Korea Exchange (KRX), firms with over 1 trillion won listed on the benchmark KOSPI decreased to 163 in July, down from 170 in June.

Those listed on the secondary tech-heavy Kosdaq decreased to 23 in July, down from 28.

The total market capitalization of the KOSPI-listed firms stood at around 1,202 trillion won, down 56.7 trillion won, whole those listed on the Kosdaq slid to 43.9 trillion won, down 8.5 trillion won.

The drop ― both in the number of firms and their market cap ― was the fastest since October 2018, when the trade feud between the U.S.-China began to grip investors.

The figures saw improvements in the months after, mostly due to expectations that the world's two largest economies would seek a truce, not outright measures that would hurt the global trade.

However, stocks largely repeated fluctuations as U.S. President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping exchanged verbal barbs over whether to impose tariffs on goods imported to and exported from each other.

The much-sagged market sentiment is borne out of Seoul's stock trading volume, which dropped to a 30-month low in July.

The KOSPI saw its daily average trading volume in July plunge to around 4.3 trillion won, the lowest in two and a half years since January 2017 when the amount was 4.1 trillion won.

July's figure is less than half of the 9.5 trillion won recorded in May 2018.

Meanwhile, the market capitalization of 95 listed subsidiaries of the nation's top 10 conglomerates, stood at 834 trillion won in July, down 17.2 trillion won, or about 2 percent from 852.2 trillion won the month before.

Between July 1 and 26, Hanwha Group-affiliated firms took the hardest blow, with their market capitalization dropping over 13 percent from 11.6 trillion won to 10.8 trillion won.

LG Group-affiliated firms saw the second-biggest drop from 93.3 trillion won to 86.6 trillion won, an over 7 percent drop.

Hyundai Motor companies' market capitalization recorded 95.6 trillion won, an over 3 percent drop from 99.3 trillion won.

Samsung Group firms saw a drop of 1.4 percent, from 449.6 trillion won to 443.4 trillion won.