A record seven percent of Samsung Electronics’ shareholders are minors, often because their parents are putting assets in their name or laying in a nest egg.
According to the Korea Securities Depository on Wednesday, 358,257 people under 20 owned Samsung Electronics shares as of the end of 2021, up more than three times in the space of just a year. They account for 7.07 percent of its shareholders.
Korea Investment and Securities analyzed the returns on stocks owned by minors from early 2021 until the first quarter of this year and found that they yielded an average of 1.51 percent, while those owned by people their 30s and 40s earned only 0.64 percent on average.
That would suggest that minors are savvier investors than seasoned adults, though both age groups mostly invested in Samsung Electronics, Kakao and Kakao Bank among other shares.
The difference in returns was due to the number of stock transactions. Minors traded much less and paid less in fees because the shares just sat in their accounts, conducting on average 19.1 transactions a year. But adults were constantly jiggling their holdings in pursuit of illusory gains to the tune of 164.5 times a year.
“A lower number of flipping shares appears to have been behind the increase in profits,” Korea Investment said.
Korea Investment had 163,000 juvenile clients as of the end of 2021, up 136 percent from 2019. Over the same period, the balance in their stock accounts surged 386 percent to W618.6 billion (US$1=W1,265).
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