The value of listed firms in South Korea swelled nearly 25 percent over the past year amid a bullish stock market, a corporate tracker said Thursday. The market capitalization of 2,607 companies listed on the country's main and secondary bourses came to a combined 2,503 trillion won (US$1.9 trillion) as of Jan. 2, up 24.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea CXO Institute. The number of companies with a market cap of 1 trillion won or more stood at 259, up 31 from a year ago. A total of 66 companies saw their market caps surge by more than 1 trillion won over the cited period. The tally excludes the value of preferred shares issued by those companies. Global tech titan Samsung Electronics had the largest market value of 475.2 trillion won, up 143.9 trillion won from a year earlier and the largest gain among listed firms. Chip giant SK hynix was the runner-up with a market cap of 103.7 trillion won, up 48.6 trillion won from a year ago. Other big gainers include cathode maker EcoPro BM, leading steelmaker POSCO Holdings, No. 2 automaker Kia and top secondary battery producer EcoPro. In contrast, major battery maker Samsung SDI chalked up the biggest loss of 9.3 trillion won, with its market cap reaching 32.1 trillion won as of Jan. 2. Other big losers were leading chemicals maker LG Chem, cosmetics giant LG HandH, major online and mobile game developer NCsoft and top battery maker LG Energy Solution. Source: Yonhap News Agency
