Data: Under high stock-market leverage, 1 out of every 30 adults in South Korea faces an additional margin call.

Deep Tide TechFlow message: On July 17, according to Caixin, Ioannis Blekos, Managing Director of Goldman Sachs’ trading division, said that as of July 13, more than 1.2 million leveraged credit accounts of retail investors in the Korean market had triggered margin call notifications. About 320,000 to 360,000 accounts were forcibly liquidated by brokers. Korea’s population aged 15 to 64 is about 35.7 million; based on this, it is estimated that about 1 out of every 30 eligible working-age people has received a margin call notification.

Reportedly, the margin balance in retail brokerage accounts has fallen by about 300 trillion KRW, dropping to the lowest level since February 20 this year. Meanwhile, the proportion of accounts receiving margin call notifications rose to about 5% as of last Friday, and is expected to rise further as selling pressure in the semiconductor sector intensifies. It is understood that based on Thursday’s capital flow data, foreign investors and domestic institutional investors have been exiting.