On the 27th, single-stock leveraged products for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix debuted in South Korea for the first time, causing the server of the Financial Investment Education Institute to crash amid the investment frenzy. The homepage of the website was effectively "down" as investors swarmed to complete the mandatory training required for trading these products. Concurrently, these leveraged single-stock products surged by approximately 20%.
According to the Financial Investment Education Institute of the Korea Financial Investment Association, the number of website users surged sharply at 2 p.m. that day, rendering the server inaccessible.
Before the morning market opening, connection delays were observed before 8 a.m., after which the website became completely inaccessible. The previous day, the number of simultaneous online users approached 9,000, causing a temporary connection disruption.
An official from the Korea Financial Investment Association explained, "Since this morning, the number of simultaneous online users has reached a level of 6,000 to 7,000, leading to connection delays."
This access congestion resulted from the concentrated influx of investors due to the same-day listing of single-stock leveraged products for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The previous night, Micron Technology's stock price soared nearly 20% in the U.S. market, fueling expectations of a rise in South Korean semiconductor stocks and consequently driving a surge in investment demand.
To invest in these single-stock leveraged products, investors must complete a total of two hours of mandatory pre-training (including one hour of existing basic training and one hour of advanced training) and meet a base deposit requirement of 10 million won. Reports indicate that the number of users on the previous day alone exceeded 60,000. Considering the previous peak user count was around 20,000, this scale is notably unusual.
On that day, 16 single-stock leveraged and inverse products based on Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were listed simultaneously. Buoyed by positive sentiment from U.S. semiconductor stocks, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) broke through the 8,400-point mark during the session, with funds heavily concentrating into these related products.
In particular, leveraged products for SK Hynius showed strong gains. As of 2:03 p.m. that day, "KODEX SK Hynius Single Stock Leverage" was trading at 29,040 won, up 23.84% from its initial price; "TIGER SK Hynius Single Stock Leverage" also rose by 24.02%.
Products such as ACE SK Hynius Single Stock Leverage, RISE SK Hynius Single Stock Leverage, 1Q SK Hynius Futures Single Stock Leverage, and KIWOOM SK Hynius Futures Single Stock Leverage also exhibited robust gains of approximately 24%.
Leveraged products for Samsung Electronics also recorded double-digit increases. "KODEX Samsung Electronics Single Stock Leverage" and "TIGER Samsung Electronics Single Stock Leverage" each rose over 10%, while products from ACE, RISE, and KIWOOM also gained approximately 11%.
As investment fervor overheated, volatility interruption (VI) mechanisms were successively triggered. According to the Korea Exchange, KODEX SK Hynius Single Stock Leverage triggered VIs repeatedly shortly after the market opened, with all single-stock leveraged and inverse products for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynius being subject to VI application.
VI is a mechanism designed to mitigate market impact by switching to a single-price auction for a set period when the price of a single stock or product surges sharply. A static VI is triggered when the current price fluctuates more than ±10% from the previous day's closing price; a dynamic VI is triggered when the current price changes rapidly compared to the last executed trade.
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