The Korea Exchange will extend trading into evening hours from Monday, opening
almost all domestic stocks until 8:00pm local time versus the current 3:30pm
close, as an initial step toward a target of 24-hour trading from December 2027.
The move—unprecedented among major Asian bourgeois—aims to attract sustained
global investor demand and will test whether longer hours can sustain liquidity
and meet investor needs amid cooling interest in Korean equities. A senior
investment manager at a London asset manager, Lee Young-jae, said longer trading
windows give investors more flexibility and tend to improve market efficiency,
and that trading-focused and hedge fund investors may use the hours more
frequently. BofA's head of Korea equity sales, Edward Kim, called it another
step in the evolution of Korea's capital markets and their accessibility to
global investors.
