EcoPro share price surpasses 1 million won during Monday's intraday trading

EcoPro headquarters in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of EcoPro

Stock price of secondary battery materials group rises by 780 percent this year

By Anna J. Park

The stock price of EcoPro exceeded the 1 million won ($765) mark during Monday's trading session, becoming a so-called “emperor's stock,” a Korean term that refers to stocks reaching that milestone. It is the first time since 2007 that the stock price of a company listed on the tech-heavy Kosdaq has exceeded the watermark.

According to the Korea Exchange (KRX), the stock price of the holding company owning the secondary battery materials subsidiary rose as high as 1,015,000 won at 9:20 a.m., hitting its all-time high. The price then declined during the rest of the session, finishing at 965,000 won, a 1.53 percent fall from the previous trading session.

Despite the fall in the closing price, the stock price rose by nearly nine times this year. EcoPro's closing price on Jan. 2 stood at 110,000 won. The stock has been skyrocketing throughout the past several months, with its market cap soaring to over 25.6 trillion won as of Monday.

EcoPro is now the second-largest market cap company listed on the Kosdaq market, closely following EcoPro BM's market cap of 27.8 trillion won. A subsidiary of EcoPro, EcoPro BM is a world-class manufacturer of cathode materials, a key component in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

With the whopping 780 percent hike in the stock price for this year alone, the current price is beyond the reasonable scope of stock analysts' target prices. The average target price by local stock analysts during the past three months was 425,000 won, far less than half of Monday's closing price. Market insiders say the current price level no longer reflects the company's fundamentals, and it has become a meme stock among fanatical retail investors, who continue buying up stocks believing its price will continue to rise.

Meanwhile, foreign investment in the company decreased to 6.05 percent as of Monday, down from 7.43 percent in January.