After holding a joint meeting on July 16, the Korea Financial Services Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Bank of Korea decided to tighten the margin requirements for leveraged transactions in Korea's single stock, raise the minimum deposit from 10 million won to 30 million won, and only accept cash as security deposit. However, risk-chasing retail investors are flocking to CFDs. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, as of Monday, the holding volume of CFDs on the Korea Composite KoSPI Index jumped by nearly two-thirds in the past year, reaching a peak of around 3.3 trillion won, and their leverage ratio could be as high as 2.5 times. At the single stock level, traffic over the past year has followed the market's star stock: SK Hynix's CFD holdings soared by nearly 2,500% to 235 billion won. Samsung Electronics' shareholding jumped fivefold to 217 billion won. CFDs are financial derivatives that are settled by differences in asset price changes. Traders can participate in market ups and downs without actually holding the underlying asset. They are widely used in stock, foreign exchange, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrency markets, and are usually combined with a leverage mechanism to increase trading exposure.

After holding a joint meeting on July 16, the Korea Financial Services Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Bank of Korea decided to tighten the margin requirements for leveraged transactions in Korea's single stock, raise the minimum deposit from 10 million won to 30 million won, and only accept cash as security deposit. However, risk-chasing retail investors are flocking to CFDs. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association, as of Monday, the holding volume of CFDs on the Korea Composite KoSPI Index jumped by nearly two-thirds in the past year, reaching a peak of around 3.3 trillion won, and their leverage ratio could be as high as 2.5 times. At the single stock level, traffic over the past year has followed the market's star stock: SK Hynix's CFD holdings soared by nearly 2,500% to 235 billion won. Samsung Electronics' shareholding jumped fivefold to 217 billion won. CFDs are financial derivatives that are settled by differences in asset price changes. Traders can participate in market ups and downs without actually holding the underlying asset. They are widely used in stock, foreign exchange, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrency markets, and are usually combined with a leverage mechanism to increase trading exposure.