코로나 19 이후 개인투자자의 투자행태에 관한 연구: 코스닥 시장을 중심으로

A Study on Trading Behaviors of Individual Investors After the Pandemic: Focus on the KOSDAQ Market

Purpose - This study aims to explore trading behaviors of individual investors in the KOSDAQ market, thereby explaining the low profitability of individual investors relative to institutional or foreign investors and comparing features specific to the KOSDAQ market with those of the KOSPI market. Design/methodology/approach - KOSDAQ market data, ranging from 2018-01-03 to 2023-12-28, is obtained from the KRX market data system on a daily basis. 12 sub-periods are generated by dividing the entire dataset into 6-month intervals, and within each sub-period, 25 stock-groups are established by the amount of individual investors' net purchases at 4% intervals. The analysis is conducted by comparing major information on trading behaviors across the sub-periods and across the stock-groups. Findings - First, the ratio of individual investors' net purchases shows a negative correlation with the ratio of net purchases of institutional and foreign investors with a strong statistical significance for all sub-periods, and it exhibits negative correlations with the periodic cumulative returns for the most sub-periods. It is also revealed that the low profitability of individual investors might result from the failure of choosing stocks, unlike the case of the KOSPI market where individual investors' low performance is related to the choice of the timing of transactions, rather than the choice of stocks. Research implications or Originality - The empirical results indicate that individual investors in the KOSDAQ market need to be more prudent in choosing stocks than in the KOSPI market, and imply that rediscovering the benefit of the diversification, especially for the KOSDAQ market, might be substantially meaningful.