SEOUL: South Korea’s stock market was one of the world’s most volatile earlier this year, fuelling growing questions about whether the country’s sidecar remains effective.
The key market safeguard, a five-minute halt on programme trading, has been triggered far more frequently this year than ever before.
The benchmark Kospi has seen 49 sidecar activations, nearly double the 26 recorded in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis.
The secondary Kosdaq has also seen 32 sidecar interruptions this year, surpassing the 19 recorded in 2008.
Neither the Kospi nor the Kosdaq has recorded a sidecar trigger since the beginning of September.
However, a resurgence in volatility could bring another bout of sharp swings in stock prices.
Though sidecars are designed to slow the spillover of sharp futures-market movements into the cash market via trading programmes, market experts said the mechanism is outdated and should be revised to better reflect current market conditions.
South Korea’s current sidecar rules were put in place in 2001.
On Kospi, a sidecar is triggered when the Kospi 200 futures price rises or falls by 5% or more from the previous day’s close, and the move persists for at least one minute.
For Kosdaq, a sidecar is triggered when the Kosdaq 150 futures price moves 6% or more, and the spot index moves 3% or more in the same direction for at least one minute.
When the sidecar system was designed, its primary focus was on preventing programme trading triggered by sharp swings in futures prices from amplifying volatility in the spot market.
The market environment has changed significantly since the current rules were put in place more than two decades ago, with high-frequency and algorithmic trading becoming increasingly prevalent.
This has raised questions over whether the current system, which suspends programme trading orders for only five minutes, is sufficient to curb market volatility.
The mechanism alone makes it difficult to distinguish if the price movement reflects a risk of market disruption, a temporary price adjustment between the cash and futures markets or a short-term imbalance in supply and demand caused by a large programme trade.
Sidecar mechanisms are quite uncommon in major overseas stock markets.
Instead, other markets rely more heavily on circuit breakers, which halt all trading across the market. — The Korea Herald/ANN
