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[경제] '불법 공매도 미미하다' 외신 지적에…금감원 '위반비율 20% 넘는다' 반박2024.01.16 PM 10:27
블룸버그 "글로벌 IB 불법공매도, 韓 거래대금 0.001% 불과" 보도
금감원 '불법 공매도, 개별 종목에 미치는 영향 고려해야'
금융감독원이 '글로벌 투자은행(IB) 4개 곳의 불법 공매도 규모가 한국주식 거래대금 총액(2022~2023년)의 0.001%에 불과하다'는 지적에 대해 "개별 종목에 미치는 영향을 고려할 필요가 있다"고 16일 반박했다.
앞서 금감원은 BNP파리바증권, HSBC 홍콩법인 등 글로벌 IB가 약 1100억원의 무차입 공매도 주문을 제출했다고 밝힌 바 있다. 현재 금감원은 국내 공매도 거래 상위 글로벌 IB 10여곳을 대상으로 불법 공매도 여부를 조사하고 있다.
공매도는 주식을 빌려서 팔고 나중에 사서 갚는 투자 기법이다. 주가가 하락할수록 이익을 얻는다. 현행법상 공매도를 할 경우, 주식을 먼저 빌려야 한다. 만약 주식을 빌리지 않고 공매도한다면 불법이다.
이에 대해 블룸버그는 지난 15일 최근 적발된 글로벌 IB 4개사의 불법 공매도 규모가 한국 주식 거래대금 총액의 0.001%, 2년 동안 거래된 총 공매도 가치의 0.04%에 불과하다고 보도했다.
특히 상대적으로 적은 불법 공매도 규모가 한국이 금융시장에서 공매도를 완전히 금지하는 것이 정당한지 의문을 제기하는 비판가들에게 무게를 실어줄 가능성이 높다고 봤다.
이에 대해 금감원은 "불법 공매도는 특정 종목의 공정한 가격형성을 저해하고 단기 변동성을 확대시키는 등의 부작용이 있어 개별 종목에 미치는 영향을 고려해야 한다"고 반박했다.
특히 "일부 종목의 경우 공매도 위반비율(위반 주문금액/해당 종목 당일 거래대금)이 20%를 초과하는 등 종목별로 불법 공매도의 영향이 큰 것으로 확인됐다"며 "앞으로도 금융당국은 글로벌 IB 전수조사를 신속히 진행하는 등 공정한 시장질서 확립을 위한 노력도 계속 경주해 나갈 계획"이라고 강조했다.
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(Bloomberg) ‘Rampant’ Naked Shorts Found in Just 0.001% of Korea Trades
■ Korea says two more global banks illegally shorted stocks
■ Watchdog says illegal short selling causes market disturbance
By Youkyung Lee
2024년 1월 15일 오후 4:14 GMT+9
Updated on 2024년 1월 15일 오후 8:40 GMT+9
South Korea’s financial authorities have described illegal naked short selling as “rampant (겉잡을 수 없는, 만연/횡행하는),” a claim they used to justify a surprise ban on all forms of short selling in the $1.8 trillion equity market in November.
But after scouring more than two years of transaction records at global investment banks for evidence of wrongdoing, the Financial Supervisory Service (금융감독원) has turned up just 110 billion won ($84 million) worth of alleged naked short sales — an act of selling shares without borrowing them first.
The total — including an FSS announcement Sunday that two more banks violated rules — is equivalent to 0.001% of the total value of Korean shares traded in 2022 and 2023, according to Bloomberg calculations based on exchange and FSS data. That’s also just 0.04% of total short selling value traded during the two years. In comparison, the average daily short-selling turnover in October was 791 billion won ($599 million).
While the FSS probe is ongoing and its findings don’t include bank clients’ conduct, the relatively tiny sum of problematic trades unearthed so far likely gives weight to critics who have questioned the justification for a complete ban on short selling in Asia’s sixth-biggest stock market. They see the move as politically motivated in the run up to parliamentary elections in April.
“Illegal short-selling caused damages to investors at the time,” the FSS said in a response to queries from Bloomberg News. “The comparison should be made between the traded value of a certain stock on a certain day, rather than the sum of annual trades.” The authorities declined to name the stocks that were illegally shorted.
Individual investors in Korea — accounting for nearly 30% of Korea’s population of roughly 50 million — often blame short sellers for market downturns. But the authorities’ moves “aren’t really helpful to the development of Korea’s capital markets,” said Lyndon Chao, managing director at Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association Ltd.
“It’s simply not true that illegal short selling is rampant in Korea, certainly not by the global community,” Chao said. “Short selling takes up a very, very small percentage of overall trading volumes, so it’s just illogical and irrational to say that because of this very small percentage of trading that’s shorting the market.”
The focus of the latest investigations does not include rule violations by investment banks’ end-clients such as hedge funds, according to a senior FSS official, speaking anonymously to discuss on-going investigations.
South Korea launched a 20-person special investigation team at the watchdog FSS in November. The team aimed to probe all short-selling activities since May 2021 by major global investment banks that most actively handle such trades in the country.
The probe launch came after authorities accused in October two global banks of “routinely and intentionally” breaching short-selling rules in trades totaling 56 billion won. The two banks — BNP Paribas SA and HSBC Holdings Plc — along with BNP’s local brokerage unit were fined a combined 26.5 billion won ($20.4 million) and could face investigations by prosecutors.
In the FSS’ Sunday update to its investigation, the watchdog said two other global investment banks conducted 54 billion won worth of illegal short selling on five Korean stocks. The watchdog, without naming the banks, said it would seek to impose fines.
“Those suspicions that there has been market disturbance by illegal short selling were true,” the FSS said in a statement Sunday.
South Korea has prohibited any kind of stock short selling until the end of June, vowing to root out illegal trades that it says have hurt trust and fairness in the market.
President Yoon Suk Yeol also expressed his support for the ban, saying the measure will stay in place until an improvement is made in the short-selling trade systems. Illegal short sellers cause “great losses to retail investors,” he said.
The global investment banking industry and the South Korean authorities appear to have different definitions on what “rampant” means, said Lee Hyo Seob, senior research fellow at Korea Capital Market Institute.
“It appears that there have been a habitual ignorance of rules in the investment banking industry where there have been mismatches between the number of stocks that were shorted and the number of stocks that have been borrowed, as those numbers did not match in real time,” Lee said
The figures could be just a tip of the iceberg, Lee said.
Many of the cited violations, while perhaps illegal, constituted mere operational and technical breaches and weren’t malicious activities, according to ASIFMA’s Chao.
“Mistakes will always happen no matter how much people try to mitigate,” he said.