By Jihoon Lee and Cynthia Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea has decided to extend a market-wide ban on short-selling of stocks through the first quarter of 2025, as the government focuses on developing a system to control illicit trading practices before resuming the trading strategy.
“The ban on short-selling will be extended until March 30, 2025 to establish an electronic system to prevent naked short-selling and relieve concerns about such practices hindering fair pricing in the securities market,” the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said after the stock market closed on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the FSC said it would set up by March next year an electronic monitoring platform, first introduced in April to better detect naked-short sales, after a meeting with the ruling party and related financial agencies.
The FSC said it would also revise short-selling rules to level the playing field between retail and institutional investors and strengthen fines on illicit trading practices, as announced in November.
The ban had been set to expire on June 30.
“The party requested that the current short-selling ban be extended until an electronic system is established,” the ruling People Power party said in a statement released after the meeting.
Short-selling, a practice involving borrowing shares and then selling them in the market, has been criticised by South Korean retail investors for sparking price falls and has been banned since November last year as authorities vowed to root out illegal trading practices including naked short-selling.
Global investors are closely monitoring South Korea’s short-selling rules as critics blame the inability to place bearish bets as a hedging strategy for reduced transparency in the market.
“There is nothing good about extending the ban when the market is rising. It disturbs the supply-demand structure in the market, especially for foreigners, and makes it more difficult for South Korea to be included in MSCI’s developed market index,” a market analyst said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Global index provider Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), which categorises South Korea as an emerging market, last week downgraded the country’s short-selling accessibility in its annual review.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim, Jihoon Lee and Cynthia Kim; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong)
