![\"Korea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260803.7a58dac3e5ee4dd4a84a3e4a4fa1ef46_P1.png\"\/ "\\"KRX")
Korea Exchange’s Seoul headquarters. Korea Exchange<\/p>\nKorea Exchange’s Seoul headquarters. Korea Exchange<\/p>\n
The Korea Exchange (KRX) has raised August margin rates on derivatives (futures and options) for the KOSPI and KOSDAQ indexes as well as large-cap stocks including Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), responding to growing market volatility. The move follows major securities firms independently raising their own margin rates to curb debt-fueled investing, with the exchange now stepping in to manage volatility by reducing leverage within the derivatives market.<\/p>\n
According to the financial investment industry on the 4th, the Korea Exchange raised the deposit margin rate for KOSPI 200 and KOSDAQ 150 futures to 21.00% from 19.80%, up 1.20 percentage points, effective from the 3rd, the first trading day of August. This marks a second consecutive monthly increase from 19.50% in June. The trading margin rate, the minimum requirement to maintain a futures contract without forced liquidation, also rose to 14.00% in August, following 13.00% in June and 13.20% in July. Derivatives market margin rates are calculated and applied by the exchange on the first Monday of each month.<\/p>\n
A deposit margin rate of 21.00% means investors must deposit 21% of the notional amount in cash to start new trades. In addition, if account assets fall below the trading margin rate of 14.00%, the investor faces a margin call from the securities firm for additional margin payments. Failure to meet this within the deadline results in a reverse trade, or liquidation.<\/p>\n
The exchange also raised margin rates on many individual stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) futures and options products. Of a total of 284 underlying assets, margin rates were raised for 171 issues, or 60.2%, while 14 were maintained and only 99 were lowered. In particular, the deposit margin rate for futures on Samsung Electronics, a “national stock,” was raised to 45.00% from 37.05%, and the trading margin rate to 30.00% from 24.70%, up 5.30 percentage points. Rates for SK Square and Samsung Electro-Mechanics also rose, while SK hynix (000660.KS) maintained its existing margin rates (48.45% deposit, 32.30% trading).<\/p>\n
The increase in derivatives margin rates aligns with measures to raise margin rates on ordinary stock accounts. Earlier, major securities firms had raised deposit margin rates on key issues such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Raising margin rates increases entry costs for new investors and requires existing investors to keep more margin in their accounts, producing a leverage-curbing effect. “Raising derivatives market margin rates has a strong effect of controlling speculative debt-fueled investing demand by increasing entry costs,” a securities firm official said. “The intent is to calm the volatile market through comprehensive leverage-reduction measures across both the spot and derivatives markets.”<\/p>\n
Separately, the exchange announced that it will additionally list 18 stock futures issues and two stock options issues on the 14th of next month. Fourteen of the futures issues are on the KOSDAQ. In addition, 10 issues will be excluded from the underlying stocks for stock futures due to their removal from representative indexes. “We selected the issues to reflect the rebalancing of representative market indexes,” a KRX official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Korea Exchange’s Seoul headquarters. Korea Exchange The Korea Exchange (KRX) has raised August margin rates on derivatives (futures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457],"tags":[35257,55943,337,17616,4728,864,55944,3536,40921],"class_list":["post-108695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea-exchange","tag-debt-fueled-investing","tag-derivatives-margin-rate","tag-korea-exchange","tag-kosdaq-150","tag-kospi-200-futures","tag-krx","tag-leverage-curbs","tag-market-volatility","tag-samsung-electronics-futures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}